


When the Sky Tears

by LawGrad07



Category: Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Genre: F/M, Greedy horses, Hessian/OC - Freeform, Intelligent ones too, Occasional massive violence, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:21:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22752412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LawGrad07/pseuds/LawGrad07
Summary: The year is 1776. The battle for what will become America rages and reinforcements have been sent into the fray. With them are nurses, who have uprooted their lives to see to the casualties of war. For some though, more is sown during the conflict's course than horror. Bonds of friendship, sisterhood and love will be made in a place where none should flourish.Eventual Hessian/OC.
Relationships: The Hessian/Original Character
Comments: 17
Kudos: 20





	1. The Nurses

**Author's Note:**

> This story (which is also alive, well and updated on FF.net) is set in the world of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, but that, dear readers, is where the similarities end. It begins in the year 1776, three years before the notorious Hessian Horseman is set, in Burton's world, to lose his head. He, the Hessian, has always intrigued me as a character, and I wrote this piece, as well as to exercise my fiction writing muscles, in an effort to better know him and the world he inhabits. As the story-tags suggest, there will be a chance of something akin to romance in this tale, but later. Much later. This world is rich, and I feel the Horseman could well be a deeply complex creature. I refuse to do it, or him, the disservice of making this story anything other than representative of these facts.
> 
> A final little point, later in the story there will be many and varied characters for whom German is their mother tongue. It is not mine however, so while I shall do my damnedest to make sure my writing is accurate, if you spot a mistake don't hesitate to correct me. Any such interactions will be translated at the end of their respective chapters.

The year was 1776. The month, July.

Through a thick and encompassing mist, four Frigates flying English flags broke away from the great armada making for New York harbour under Admiral Richard Howe and pitched south and west towards the New Jersey coast. Within each of their holds, two hundred of the King's finest soldiers waited impatiently for landfall; their weapons stowed in favour of cards, small coins and a nightly ale ration for the duration of their trip. Lord knows, it had been a long one.

Aboard the Valliant, the third ship in the flotilla, a small group of nurses travelled along with the soldiers. There were twelve of them in all, and they had been tasked with setting up and assisting in the running of triage stations at a number of the larger allied camps within the besieged Colonies. Their destinations were many and varied, for there were numerous encampments in need of their services, and each woman, for all her bravery in volunteering for this task, hoped not to be positioned too close to the frontline.

Sleeping two to a cabin and thoroughly segregated from the gentlemen-soldiers in their portion of the hold, the travelling ladies spent the later hours of the day speaking to each other in hushed voices, wondering about the new and foreign land they were venturing to and what they would find once they got there.

The pair who had grown closest over the voyage were Sally and Rose. Sally, a doctor's daughter, had been obliged by her father when she was young and impressionable, and was allowed, under his tutelage, to study his books on anatomy and medicine. Though she was denied, because of her sex, the chance to study formally and practice for a living wage, the experience she gained in her father's surgery served as her practical schooling, and she was happy to volunteer herself as an unpaid nurse to serve King and country when the need arose.

Rose, by contrast, learned her trade from an aunt who practiced midwifery. True, she had told the enlistment officer on the dock, there is no call for midwives on the frontline, but God above if she hadn't witnessed and stitched some of the most awful tears in human flesh imaginable. That alone, she concluded, qualified her for the perils of field medicine in times of war, and the officer who stamped her papers as she bustled past him to board the fat and lofty galleon moored and waiting on the Thames didn't utter a word in opposition. In fact he had looked vaguely ill.

Between these two friends now, a single candle is held. It illuminates their faces, hands, and the pearl buttons on the front of their respective dresses, but little else of the room is spared the otherwise encompassing dim. They pay it no heed. Conjecture is in the midst of being spoken.

"I'm honestly serious, Rose" Sally pressed, smiling at how suddenly aghast her companion looked. "The quartermaster told me so himself just today. Germans! **HUNDREDS** of them!"

"I don't understand" Rose replied, leaning to ferret through the small file of documents that she and her fellow nurses had been presented with as they boarded. She pulled a slightly crinkled map of the New World's east coast from within the soft leather covering slip, her entire expression pinching with the depth of her frown as she regarded it. "I thought we were winning the war." As she spoke she traced what the map's key identified as the allied line with the tip of her finger, noting it's seemingly favourable position. "Why would Germany need to send aid if we're winning?"

"I've no idea" Sally said, her chin resting in the palm of her right hand as she squinted through the candlelight. "It could be that we've been misled about England's chances of victory. Or perhaps the fact that our King is a certain German Landgrave's kith and kin makes not sending aid...undiplomatic." She snuffled softly, the candle's flame wavering at her exhalation. "Who knows."

A contemplative silence fell for a moment as the ladies regarded the map between them. As luck would have it, they were to be stationed at the same outpost. According to the officer who had given them their papers, it was large and fortified, and sat between a farmhold and the ocean in the vast openness of New Jersey. With a permanent garrison of roughly one hundred and eighty men, their little triage looked to be a busy one.

A thought occurred to Rose then, and she spoke up through a coyly growing smile, sitting the map back in its pouch. "Do you think we'll have to treat them as well?" she asked, an almost coquettish gleam in her eye. "The Germans I mean."

"Most likely. I- What's _this_?" Sally leant a little closer to Rose in the dim, an edge of faux-scandal finding her tone at the whimsical expression on her friend's face. "Rose Clarke, was it your plan all along to capture yourself a strapping sol-"

"What? _**No**_!" Rose yelped, blushing to the roots of her hair and laughing out the words. "Don't even imply it!"

"That 'no' was no denial!" her counterpart merrily pointed out, setting the candle down on the small table between their respective cots before she dropped it in her mirth. She watched as the mortally embarrassed woman fell onto her side on her cot, her head thrown back as she giggled with rapturous cheek.

"That was unfair Sally!" she accused light-heartedly. "I can't even speak the language well enough to say 'hello' without offending someone, let alone manage to...to..." A brief hush came over Rose then, caught by the sudden look of shock on her friend's face. "What ever is the matter?"

"Neither can I" Sally replied, pressing a balled fist to her midriff. The stay she wore exacerbated her propensity to hyperventilate when stressed, and the realisation she had just come to certainly wrought that very thing within her.

"Neither can you what, dear?"

"Speak the language. If we do have to treat the German forces, how in the World will we communicate with them? I don't speak a word of..." She took a couple of shallow breaths, trying to settle herself before finishing her thought with a groaned, "...Oh dear God...We're half an ocean away from home and I suddenly want to be anywhere but here!"

"I...surely they wouldn't...Oh darn it!" Rose's litany came as she struggled to push herself upright without terminally creasing the material of her dress. Though she was, for her age and station, a generally practical thing, she had, today of all days, decided to wear her favourite silks. It was a fool's earned really, within the walls of this great hulk where no one but she could appreciate their muted fineness, but without making mistakes one cannot learn. Her plight brought a tiny flicker of jollity forth from within Sally's sea of mortification, and the less practically-challenged woman leant her upended friend her arm to hold as she righted herself.

A flurry of movement later and they were once again facing each other across the milky light of their shared candle.

"As I was saying" Rose huffed as she smoothed her dress back into good order. "Do you really think Mr Barmouth would have us treating men who aren't strictly part of the English army?"

The man she referred to, Henry Barmouth, was one of the chief investors in medical supplies in England. It was from his pocket that the funding for the triages that she, Sally and their ten counterparts were to work in came. He was shrewd and opportunistic, and this war was making him a fortune.

"It'd make him a lot more money if he did" Sally replied, trying to reason her way out of the unhappy conclusion they seemed to have reached on conjecture alone. " _ **Surely**_ we would have been told."

"Why yes, of course!" Rose agreed, hoping that enthusiasm would somehow quiet the doubt which now plagued both she and her friend. "The officer who passed out our notes would have warned us."

Somewhere in that sentence a cue was given that set both women instantly on edge. It was something non-verbal; the tone of Rose's voice as she spoke, less the words she actually said, and the frown that Sally responded to it with. Over exuberance met with apprehension. A tense beat of silence passed before either woman dared speak.

"Have you read everything in there?" Sally finally asked, pointing to the open document folder on their shared night table.

"No, I thought you-"

"No."

Rose's face fell. "Oh!...Oh _**zounds**_!" she groaned, dropping her face into her hands as Sally leapt for the folder.

"We must be two thirds through our voyage by now!" the near frantic woman said as she separated the leather cover from its contents and spilled them across the length of her cot.

" **HOW** could I have not had the forethought to _**READ**_ this!"

"We've had other things on our minds" Rose spoke in limp defence of their mutual distraction from the literature as she shimmied over to the edge of Sally's cot and settled. What with all the soldiers and gossip, card games and the _glorious_ walks around the massive rectangular deck, time had simply passed on by without them noticing. She reached for a document while her counterpart rummaged at random, urgency lending her hands great speed.

The next few minutes passed in relative silence, but for sporadic mutterings or the occasional hitched breath from Sally and the raspy shuffle of thin and wispy papers being sorted through and scanned for details pertaining to the need for volunteer nurses to be versed in a tongue outside of their native English. Three small piles of paper were made upon the cot, documents being placed in each depending on their subject matter.

The first pile was for any documents that detailed their living arrangements and duties while they worked in the triage. This one was by far the largest of the three, and included a small booklet which explained what essentials each nurse would be provided with and what would be expected of them once they reached their destination. Reading through the first few pages lost the women a full quarter hour, and both were pleased to learn that, among other things, there would be facilities to boil water. Neither could imagine a worse fate than working unending shifts without the ability, when finally they had a moment to spare, to have a hot bath.

With their main concerns about their lodgings allayed and their minds settled on the fact that the rest of the little manual contained their duties, exhaustively detailed, it was set back in the pile to be finished later. For now, the sorting went on.

The second pile was for official-looking papers which, upon inspection, were found to require the signatures of both Mr Barmouth and a Doctor Robin Hall, of whom neither woman had heard, when they arrived at their destination. According to one particularly officious scrap of paper in this pile, Doctor Hall was the head physician at the camp they were to work at, and would be the man to whom they were accountable during their time there.

The last pile was for anything that didn't fit in the first two. In here went a couple of small receipts that Rose had tucked into the folder after buying a treat or two for herself from the quartermaster; one laundry note for a hat that was now, thanks to a marksman of a seagull, entirely ruined; a single papery sweet wrapper, which was all that remained of one of the treats Rose had bought, and, finally, a neatly folded piece of paper which both women overlooked when first they designated it a pile. It was small, yellow, and blank on the outside. When the cot was clear of clutter however, and they re-checked each pile for safety's sake, the paper stood out like the awful chalky blotches patterning Rose's once pristine hat.

"What are the odds" Sally asked, picking up the object of their consternation. "That this will be a mandatory order to all crewmen and women to learn Ger-" She was hushed by Rose's hands covering her lips, and managed a soft chortle through them while their owner glared at her.

"The more often you say things like that, the more likely they'll be to come true!" she scolded playfully, though her expression lost none of its harried character. "May I read it please?"

Sally passed the slip over with a slight nod before retrieving her own file from where she had tucked it beneath her single, threadbare pillow on the evening she arrived onboard. She had done this, not because she had wanted to ignore the folder's contents, but for practical reasons. A single pillow was simply horrific on the neck, and she was unwilling to use any of the few spare clothes she had with her as extra padding.

"...'Dear Volunteer'..." Rose began, trailing off to read in silence while Sally flicked through her file. She too found a small, yellowish, neatly folded piece of paper which, as Rose's had, turned out to be a hand written letter. She opened it out and read from where Rose left off.

"...'Welcome to the war effort. You will be stationed between a farmhold and a markedly wet place'...Who wrote this?" she snuffled, checking the signature quickly. "Doctor Hall."

"Oh I like him already!" Rose opined cheerfully.

"...'Though I can give no names'..." Sally continued, "...'and say no more on your eventual location for reasons of security. You will be one of the two nurses assigned to the triage here'...Well, I already know the second."

"That you rightly do."

"...'And will be tasked with seeing to the good health of over two hundred men, English...and German alike'..."

At this revelation the friends shared a pained glance, their perception of their situation shifting to accommodate the new information. It seemed that their conclusions about Mr Barmouth's desire to expand his fortunes had been accurate. That, or this Dr Hall fellow was a terribly altruistic sort.

As the next line was approached, Sally's voice became a little choppy as her breaths once again began to shorten. By its end she wasn't breathing at all. "...'Be advised. The good men of Hesse-Kassel are...r...rare speakers of English, so an aptitude in conversational German would be very much appreciated, and...would put...everyone at their ease'..." A brief pause was had, the beleaguered woman's jaw working silently for a moment before words burst forth.

"God in Heaven, I am the _Devil_ for bad luck!" she exclaimed, thrusting the letter away as if it had burned her. After a panic-thinned breath she dropped her face into both hands, leaning forward enough that she could rest her elbows on her knees as her anxiousness peaked.

Rose, for her part, was honestly more flustered by her friend's use of the word 'Devil' than by the thought of not sharing a common language with her prospective patients. One can work around the lack of a language and learn as one goes along. Making oneself right with God however is a lifetime pursuit, and talk of Satan is not the way to endear oneself to the Almighty. Though she was quite rambunctious by nature, Rose had intimations of being God-fearing about her, and she liked to think that He had approved of her helping to bring new lives into His world while she had worked with her aunt back in London's east end. Quite how her new occupation would square with Him she wasn't sure, but saving lives was certainly preferable to ending them.

Tempered by her faith as she was however, she was by no means above using coarseness to break a dour mood. Thus, as she reached and gave poor aggrieved Sally a comforting pat on the back, she deadpanned, "You know, for all this Dr Hall writes in the manner of a polite and cultured gentleman, I have the sudden urge to drown him."

The outrageousness of her words snapped Sally's head up, and she sputtered out an almost mirthful titter while staring at her counterpart, her expression a mixture of shock and panic. After swallowing back a swell of trepidation and bile, she asked "Is there anything in there about how we might acquire this 'aptitude in conversational German'?"

"Let me look."

As Rose went back to fishing through her letter, Sally forced herself to breathe deeply in an effort to quell the gasping attack she could feel coming on. This was a more arduous task than it might seem to be, for she was now feeling more like a fish out of water than she yet had in her life. For every one of her twenty-eight years she'd had herself convinced that the piecemeal Latin she used for reading parts of her father's medical texts would be the only foreign language she would need to get by in the life of a medic.

More the fool she, it seemed.

What made the unexpected need to widen her repertoire so worrying was not shame on her part for needing assistance in coming to grips with a new language. Learning had been part of her life for many years, and she was at her happiest when she was presented with something new to tackle. No, the troubling thing was that, even with days upon days crammed with practice, she would not be fluent enough by the time they reached their destination to be properly and comfortably able to interact with and care for her patients. Not only did she feel like she was suddenly useless to this cause she had volunteered to be a part of, but she also felt silenced, incapable of communicating her thoughts coherently to those who may come to rely on her. And to compound this, there was no way she could escape. The time were returning to England was an option had passed long ago. The walls felt suddenly close and her breaths, doubly laboured.

Horror-stricken, she imagined the scenario - being approached by a foreign solider who asks for aid while she stares dumbly mute back at him, pained embarrassment overcoming them both; hers for herself, and his, for her also. Sally shuddered at the thought, and was just about to curl herself into as tight a ball as possible when a sudden and gleeful "Ah ha!" from Rose brought her mind back from its wonderings.

"You found something?" she wheezed hopefully, leaning to try and see whatever the passage that had piqued her friend's interest was about. Rose held the letter between them, reading out what she'd found.

"...'Being that proficiency in foreign tongues is something of a cultured privilege in modern England, I have included in the back of the housing booklet a small guide to the most commonly used and necessary words and phrases likely to be encountered while working alongside the German forces'...Well isn't he a helpful fellow..."

" _Very_ " Sally grumbled, opening the housing and duties booklet they had looked at moments before to find the neatly printed notes promised by the letter on the back seven and three-quarter pages. On the bottom of the last page was a cheerfully inscribed note,

'Ich hoffe, das hilft! That is the German for, 'I hope this helps!'

Both women did their level best to sound out the foreign phrase, but without half a clue as to what syllables the letters conspired to create, they were left more off put than when they began. Even easygoing Rose appeared more ill at ease than she had a moment previous.

A tense few seconds of eye contact was held before Sally snapped the book closed, hiding the doctor's presently unwelcome positivity. "So" she brooked, giving her equally downhearted friend a forced smile. "Drowning?"

Rose had the grace to look shocked at herself for snorting in amusement. "Doctor Hall? Yes. Myself?...Hmm, not _quite_ yet. Give that here." She reached over and slipped the book from between Sally's fingers, flipping it open to the first page of notes.

"It starts with the alphabet at least..." she said, moving further into the candlelight to better examine the letters. Off to her left, Sally huffed softly.

"I'll study it in a moment" she said as she stood, her steps echoing more noisily than her still uneven breathing in the sparse room as she walked to the corner in which they had piled their travelling cases. From within the smallest of hers, an old leather doctor's bag, she withdrew her journal and, having closed the bag with a soft click, returned to Rose's side to share the candlelight. She opened the journal at today's page and then counted forward to the projected end of their voyage.

"...Eighteen days..."

Rose looked up from her reading. "Sorry?"

"We look to reach the coast in eighteen days or so. God willing."

"Hm...Do you think we could..." The pages of notations were indicated with a glance. "Get through this in that time?"

Sally gave a thready and doubtful chuff. "So short a time to learn a language?"

"No" Rose corrected sagely, "We need only become proficient enough to be able to learn more once we arrive."

Though Sally at first looked dubious, she couldn't forget the helpless feeling of non-comprehension that she feared would overtake her at some crucial moment in the near future - confronted by a soldier who needed her help but whose words she could not understand. In the face of THAT horror, even a little German was better than absolutely none.

"What shall we learn to say first?" she asked, looking at the page Rose had open. The alphabet ran across the top and looked, at least at first glance, to be more or less comprehensible.

"How about" Rose chuckled teasingly. "I cannot speak much German. Have mercy!"

The dour mood that had encroached upon the two friends, along with the lingering remnants Sally's breathing issue, were evaporated entirely by the explosion of laughter that followed this suggestion, and they spent the small hours scanning Dr Hall's guidance notes, trying to piece together that exact phrase as the coast, and their new lives, grew ever closer.


	2. Arrival

It was a fresh, warm morning in early August 1776 when tall masts topped with English flags were spotted by a pair of watchmen stationed high in their lofty tower on the eastern seaboard. Gulls screamed, the ocean lapped the shore and the wind whipped an English Corporal's cap clean off his head as he scarpered down the rotten hair thin steps of the ladder and made for his horse. The ride from seafront to base camp needed to be made with haste. It looked like the reinforcements had arrived.

An entire day would pass before all four Frigates were free of their walking cargo. The process of unloading was deathly slow and care strewn; one ship at a time letting down its guard for long enough to jettison its longboats while its sister ships kept a constant watch to the north, east, and south. Once the boats hit the shore their occupants made haste up the beach, making for the watch tower from which they had first been spotted hours earlier. This was allied land, at least for the moment, and while that fact made it safe enough to land here, the soldiers who came to meet them and pointed the way towards their base did not, even in the dusk's low light, carry lanterns. Any unaccounted-for pinprick of light on the shore could alert passing enemy ships to their presence. This eventuality could not be chanced.

When finally they made it ashore, Sally, Rose and the ten other nurses they had been travelling with were ferried up the beach amid one of the fifty or so groups of soldiers with whom they had disembarked an hour previous. They were soaked, cold, covered in sand and half petrified with nerves, but they had made it in one piece and for this they were grateful.

Urged on by the squadron that seemed to have adopted them, they made their way from the crest of the sandy hillock upon which the guard tower sat, down the opposite side and onto what looked to have once been a cart track. The ground was wet and muddy from a day's worth of passing soldiers, and more than a couple of slips were had as the darkness closed in and the night's chill made already clumsy feet numb.

Once their group and two others had made it safely from craggy hill to pockmarked track, they were greeted by a waiting soldier. Though he was covered from throat to ankles in a travelling cloak, the red collar and cuffs of his uniform were allowed to peek through when he squared his shoulders and stood in the centre of the track to address the congregation.

"I'll keep this necessarily brief. Your destination is two miles west of here. You will follow this track." He gestured crisply to the path behind him. "Until you are met by a cavalryman. He will act as your escort for the remainder of your journey. He will not be in uniform, so look for a brown horse with a braided tail. Follow on behind him at a distance of ten or so paces. This area is relatively peaceful, but we've been fooled before and are taking no chances."

As he spoke, the soldier's gaze swept across the people before him, seeking the eyes of some but not all of those he addressed. When he found the gaggle of nurses amid the uniforms of his fellows he stepped closer, the ranks parting like the sea to Moses to let him through.

"Ladies" he said by way of greeting, eyeing them critically and being eyed by some in return. "Thank you for your sacrifice in coming here. Leaving your homes behind could not have been easy. Forgive me if my words alarm you, but should poor luck strike and a battle join on your journey, I urge you to take leave of your group, scatter, and run for the coast. Leave the track swiftly. You will be harder to follow through the trees than you would be on open ground."

The dread his words brought was palpable, though if he noticed, he did not react. Instead he finished his address with a sombre nod and moved aside, extending his arm to indicate the path and waving the groups past him. "Look for the rider whose mount has a braided tail" he repeated as they began moving off, eyes front, along the muddied high-verged path. A muttered "God speed" was the last they heard from him, and as they moved further along the track, the silhouettes of lightly swaying trees arching up on either side of them, the silence that had fallen when the soldier had first approached was broken by whispered words from Sally to Rose.

"Scatter if battle is drawn, he says...Thank you for your sacrifice, he says...He sounds as if he expects us all to be slaughtered."

"I know" Rose huffed, looking around furtively. They were surrounded on all sides by walls of men at least four deep, but despite this they felt their vulnerability keenly. "It does sound terrible, but don't worry."

Sally snorted softly. "How can I not?"

"I have a plan ready just in case we end up in over our heads."

"Oh?"

"This soldier here" she said, gesturing to the gentleman on her immediate left with a gloved hand. He looked down at her, vaguely amused about being the subject of a sotto voce conversation. Pleased at having his attention, Rose carried on.

"We'll grab him by the elbows and drag him back with us! He'll keep us safe, won't you sir?" she asked, looking up at him and projecting her best 'I'm small and feminine, protect me' air.

Amused though tempered by his need to maintain discipline while on duty, the soldier gave her a little nod and mustered a gruff, "I'll endeavour to try ma'm."

Rose beamed at him, turning back to Sally to say, "You see? We'll be fine."

Her friend didn't seem particularly convinced, but she accepted the platitude regardless. "At least he has a gun" she said, clutching Rose's arm with both hands as they walked. Whether this was a protective move to keep from losing her in the crowd or one based on the need to avert another fall - Rose having been unlucky twice on the hill between watchtower and track - she wouldn't say. She did however rush to opine, "I'm relieved we're in this together, you and I" and was glad to feel Rose's answering squeeze of fingers to wrist as they picked their way along the track with nought but the direction the soldiers were going in and the risen moon to guide their path. The light cast by the latter illuminated esoteric things; the glint of a gold button on a uniform; the wetness on the pockmarked and unkempt cobbling on the track; the barrel of one of the soldier's rifles, carried neatly across his chest; and, when finally they came upon him, the spurs and tack of a cavalryman who sat proud in the saddle of a chocolate-brown stallion with a braided tail.

Though he was greeted warmly by the forward rank of their party, the rider remained silent as he gathered himself and spurred his horse, guiding it into a slow walk along the path ahead of them. It would be three quarters of an hour before they reached their destination, provided that no one dawdled and no trouble was run across on the way.

The allied encampment sat on the top of a steeply sloping hill, overlooking a half-mile of wheat fields which rolled with the topography down in a lazy curve towards the northeast. The buildings at its heart were once the property of a prominent family of settlers who, having sworn this portion of their land and any provisions they could spare to the war effort in exchange for peace and protection, now resided in their more than slightly stately farmhold a quarter mile or so up the road to the west.

The donated buildings had once been devoted to housing a number of paid hands, storing the wheat crop when it was harvested and raising the family's work horses. There were five in all. At the bottom edge of the camp, backing onto the endless wheat fields, was a stable with room enough to house seven horses at a stretch. Facing into the camp's heart, the stable was fronted at some fifteen paces distance by a large well that formed the centrepiece of a turning circle in the cobble and dirt path running like a spine through the camp towards its front gates. If one stood by that well, leant a hip against its stone wall and gazed along the path, the storehouse and two of the settlement's three bunkhouses would be found on one's right, and the third and largest bunkhouse and the outsized yard it backed onto - part exercise yard, part tent village to house the over-spill from the barracks - would dominate one's view to the left. A newly built guard tower neighboured this building, standing close to the main road and the camp's front gate. It was tall and proud and had an alarm bell at its top; a soldier with a spyglass always watchful.

Of all the buildings given over to the allies, the smallest of the bunkhouses alone found an _entirely_ new purpose when the soldiers came. Sat at the fore of the camp on the right side of the path, it served now as the area's largest triage. A squat, L-shaped structure, it lived next to and across from its sister-bunkhouses; both now turned over to the army as barracks for the transient forces shipped in from home afar.

Lit up from within by countless lanterns and candles and protected from prying eyes by dense woodland to the north, south and east, the encampment looked, from a distance, to be the very embodiment of welcome and safety. Such was the impression received by those who had walked in the hoof prints of their cavalryman-guide as they finally, cold and weary, breached the western border and set off along a gently sloping path towards the secluded oily wash of orange light that was the camp.

They were joined briefly by a second cavalryman. He rode past them briskly on his way to speak to their guide, and in doing so dispelled the group's universal wonderment at his protracted silence. "Sind diese das Verstärkungen?" the newly arrived man asked, querying the nature of his counterpart's followers. He knew from word-of-mouth and gossip that reinforcements, Verstärkungen to him, were due and was curious as to whether this raggedy band were them.

"Ja sie sind" the man astride the brown stallion replied, suddenly alight and cheeky in a way the group following him found jarring in contrast to his stoic hush throughout their trip. "Sie sind schwach und Englisch" he said, flapping a hand dismissively as his counterpart looked over his shoulder at those they spoke of. Seventy pairs of wide confused eyes met his gaze and he snorted, turning back to his comrade and snickering, "Wir sind verloren! Die Engländer kommen!" before spurring his horse and tearing up the path, intent on bringing news of the new arrivals to his superiors. They had been expected for some time.

As their guide's laughter at his gregarious comrade's antics echoed, along with said comrade's repetitions of 'Die Engländer kommen!', across the vast openness surrounding them, the ragtag group of soldiers and the nurses they had formed protective ranks around trudged on in varying levels of obliviousness over the content of the conversation they'd just witnessed. One particularly erudite infantryman translated the jestful rider's parting remark for his fellows.

"He's saying, 'The English are coming!'...At least they've got a sense of humour about them."

Rumbles of agreement were heard from various spots within the group but, sequestered away within the protective bubble created by the soldiers around them, Sally and Rose felt only disquiet. "How much of their conversation did you catch?" Sally asked, looking up at her friend briefly and meeting her equally unsure gaze.

"I heard a question" Rose said, "but I only know that because of his tone of voice. I also caught 'English', the word 'and', and what sounded like 'coming'...but otherwise, nothing. You?"

"I got 'English', 'we', and 'coming' as well. 'Kommen' yes?" Sally asked, trying to sound more confident than she was.

"Yes, that's the one."

The friends shared a quick nod, assuring each other that their confidence was unharmed despite their limited progress. This show was just that however.

Facade.

Front.

Not three steps later Rose drew in a deep breath, collapsed against Sally's left side and clung to her with dramatic abandon. "We're **DOOMED**!" she wailed, drawing odd looks and chuckles from those around them as the victim of her theatrical bent squawked indignantly and fought to keep them both from toppling over. Yet for all the moment's comic appeal, and for all the rushed assurances she managed to speak between bouts of exasperated scolding, Sally couldn't help agreeing with her friend's assessment.

After they had discovered the need for a proficiency in German midway through their voyage, they had devoted themselves to learning all they could in the time between their realisation and landfall. They had made it through all of the notes provided by Dr Hall and as a result could make limited conversation between themselves, but outside of this they had no practical experience with the language. Indeed their first real encounter with it had been hearing it spoken by the horsemen at the head of their brigade not two minutes previous.

Still trying to wrest Rose to her feet and outwardly laughing, albeit a little hysterically, along with her at her clownishness, Sally allowed herself to acknowledge the mortification she felt at their first abortive attempt at comprehending the language they had tried so hard to come to some kind of accord with in the frantic weeks prior to their arrival in the Colonies. Whatever it was they had thought German would sound like based on the notes and phonetic instructions they had studied, it seemed that neither she nor Rose could make heads or tails of it when it was imbued with the richness of enunciation and tone native speakers always give their mother tongue.

So caught was she in her contemplations on their predicament that she didn't realise they had reached their destination and been called to a disciplined halt until she walked into the back of the soldier immediately in front of her. After offering him hushed though heartfelt apologies and swatting Rose on the shoulder for snickering at her misstep, Sally took stock of their surroundings.

The path they had taken through the wide and open darkness left them standing on the main thoroughfare within the allied camp. To their back, the road continued on its way to places unknown, and before them, behind the slowly gathering group of people who seemed to be coming to greet them, their Hessian guide and his larking counterpart rejoined each other's company and trotted off into the long-gathered dark. Night had entirely drawn in around them on their journey from the coast, and regardless of the mid-summer's month, the air carried a faint chill and the lantern light which afforded Sally her view was blurred by the moisture in the air.

Returning her attention front and centre, she went up on her toes and tried to see past the wall of men that separated her from the people who milled and bustled before them. She could see no fewer than five uniformed soldiers, two men wearing fine clothes of a distinctly un-military nature and a woman dressed in nurse's whites who listened as the taller of the richly tailored men spoke close to her ear.

In short order attention was turned to the new arrivals. Each of the five soldiers introduced himself briskly, then called a pair of numbers which were soon understood to be the identification code for the different units of soldiers within the group. Each division had their distinct orders, and these were given clearly before they were dismissed to the barracks for a deserved night's rest.

Wading through the military jargon it soon became clear that all but one of the regiments were committed to outposts which fanned out from their current position, right through to the northwest edge of the State. The allied line needed strengthening, and the troops already on that line needed support and medical care. This need, the last soldier of the five explained, was where the nurses came in. After a quick rundown of their role within the war effort as a whole, he gestured for the slightly shorter of the tailored men to take his place before the intrigued if wary group of women. He excused himself with a slight bow as the other man began speaking, ferrying the last of the soldiers towards the barracks and leaving the nurses, for the first time since they set foot within the country, without any kind of formal guard between them and the wider world. Though all among their number remained resolute, they clustered together a hint more tightly for the lack.

"A fine, if late, evening to you ladies" the tailored man began cordially. "I am Doctor Robin Hall, head physician to this encampment."

As soon as his name was past his lips both Sally and Rose were riveted on him. This was the same Robin Hall who had provided them with instructional notes on German, handwritten in the backs of their housing and duties booklets. They took him in quickly, from the combed crest of sandy hair atop his head to the shinning tips of his shoes and concluded, after a moment of silent woman-to-woman communication, that he looked nothing like they had imagined he would.

"For this one night" he went on, oblivious to the scrutiny he was under, "your home will be the triage hospital, to your left. Thereafter, you will travel with the brigades you have been assigned to and will work with them to secure the peaceable resolution of the discord in these lands." As he spoke, he took a slip of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, looking between it and his audience.

"Now, if I could please request that a Miss Rose Clarke and a Miss Sally Rothering remain where they are for the moment. Everyone else.." he turned slightly gesturing for the woman in nurse's whites to come forward. At his call she broke from her whispered conversation with the other of the suited men and came forward as she was introduced.

"If you would follow Ms Taymar here, she will take you to your quarters."

In a flurry of half formed curtseys, Sally and Rose found themselves entirely deserted by their fellows and left, their near-hands entwined, under Dr Hall's watchful gaze. Once the commotion died down he approached them, his smile warming quite obviously as he stepped out of his role as public speaker and into the more worn, comfortable shoes of a mentor. With almost twenty-five years of experience behind him, he was greatly accustomed to calming the wary and receiving new hands.

"Miss Clarke, Miss Rothering, it's my pleasure to make your acquaintance" he said with companionable ease, grasping each woman's hand in turn as they introduced themselves. By sight they appeared to be nothing less than fine examples of modern women, early into their prime. If he was any judge he would guess, if only by the richness of their respective dresses, that Rose came from a wealthier family than her counterpart did. She was also taller than Sally by an appreciable margin and had auburn hair nestled beneath a daintily tied bonnet where her friend, by comparison, was fair haired and wore no hat. Inconsequential as these minutiae were, they were vital to Robin. His memory was for details and names, not faces, and he was resolved not to make a fool of himself by mistaking one of his charges for the other repeatedly.

They spoke of unimportant things as they walked towards the triage, the man who had bent the ear of Ms Taymar following them at a distance. Walking with the aid of an unnecessary ebony cane and clad in his topped and tailed coats, he exuded disdain for his surroundings and stuck out like a pig on a sheep farm. This is Henry Barmouth, head investor in every allied triage hospital in New Jersey. He is a tall man, over half a head taller than Dr Hall, and uses this to his advantage when going out of his way to intimidate those he feels require that particular kind of persuasion. Red haired, broad shouldered and with excess girth discussed by clever tailoring, he felt it to be his right, since he had paid for the supplies that allowed a triage to be placed here, to dictate the day-to-day running of the facilities. This was something he and Dr Hall clashed about regularly, but tonight he was of a mind to ingratiate, not intimidate. It would be imprudent, given the number of visitors he had under his roof, to leave them with anything but the best impression of him to take across the country when they moved on in the morning.

To enter the triage one must scale five steps. These lead to a small porch which in turn leads to the front door of the building. It, like the building's entirety, is painted white and has grown grey with age around the most well used edges. Once inside one finds on one's left a wall with three doors along its length. These are, in order, Mr Barmouth's office, Dr Hall's private quarters, and finally the quarters of the resident nurses. With one's back to this last door, one faces a long corridor which, on the left side, is dotted with windows overlooking the path through the wheat fields recently walked by the newly arrived troops. On the right side sits a storage room and next to that a room equipped with a large stove. Here is where the bandages and linens used daily are washed, and where water for bathing is heated.

Through the door at the end of this corridor is the ward itself. The room is wide and spacious, and houses twenty beds, in addition to that which the ward matron, Ms Taymar, calls her own. Originally it was planned that she would have the nurses quarters and the that nurses themselves would sleep on the ward to be at hand should they be needed, but such was her experience and affinity with the soldiers here that she insisted she be allowed to stay. She even earned herself a nickname from the Hessian forces. 'Ober' they call her, short for 'Oberschwester', which to them means matron or head nurse and to her is a source of mild irritation intercut with motherly warmth.

The first thing seen upon entering the ward is a wide pair of double doors on the far end of the long room. These lead out onto a balcony, upon which linins are hung out to dry and the day to day bustle of the camp is observed by off duty staff in quiet moments.

On the ward itself there are twenty six beds, though makeshift cots could be and have been used in the past when the number of wounded outstripped the ward's actual capacity. They ran the length of each wall and had between each of them a curtain hung for privacy.

Immediately on one's left at the entrance to the ward stands what used to be a storage room. It is no bigger than the stove-room but, unlike its counterpart, has been repurposed by Robin and Ms Taymar as a makeshift operating theatre. Though there is little more than a table and cabinets full of Robin's assorted medical equipment, the set up saves more lives than are lost to wounds or infection and for that the staff, and the patients, are immensely grateful.

Back out in the hall, Sally and Rose stand between Dr Hall and Mr Barmouth, who the former introduced as 'Henry' and the latter reiterated as 'Sir'. His good graces are for the visitors, not the people he considers his subordinates. Their papers, sodden from their trip across land and sea, are signed as required by both Messrs, but will be discarded later by Mr Barmouth as pure formality.

"See to yourselves" he said as he left their company, gesturing to their quarters before making for the ward and the visitors making themselves at home within. He felt their eyes on his back as he strode off, and mistook the weight of their combined gaze as that brought through envy. The man could not have been more wrong if he tried.

As soon as he was out of earshot Robin muttered a resentful, "Berk" and rolled his eyes, his candour bringing a carefully muffled titter from his nurses. Giving them his most affecting smile, he made a much more gentile gesture towards their quarters and spoke, "Your uniforms are laid out on your beds ladies, and your personal effects will arrive from the dock by late morning. If you wish to bathe, the stove and bathing water are in the last room on the right, down here" he gestured down the hallway which Mr Barmouth had just walked along.

"The door at the end of the hall leads onto the ward. Get a night's rest and mind the instructions Ms Taymar has left for you. In the morning, come and find me on the ward" before bidding them goodnight and following Mr Barmouth to the ward. A soft and exhausted pair of 'Goodnights' followed him, and within ten minutes of entering their quarters both women were asleep, fully dressed but for their boots and Rose's tidy bonnet, in their respective beds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Sind diese das Verstärkungen?" Are these the reinforcements?
> 
> "Ja sie sind. Sie sind schwach und Englisch" Yes they are. They're weak and English.
> 
> "Wir sind verloren! Die Engländer kommen!" We're doomed! The English are coming!


	3. Becoming Our Role & First Engagements

Morning came slowly to the camp on the hill. Lit up by a swathe of golden light, the wheat fields rolling their lazy way across the land seemed to shimmer as a soft breeze caught through them and caused the stalks to sway and clatter. The air was fresh and the camp, still suffused with the deep night's hush, woke gently to the break of the day. For the most part at least. Within the nurses' quarters, all was decidedly not well. A fit was in the midst of being pitched.

"She must be **_joking_**!" Rose exclaimed for the third time in the scant five minutes since she had read through Ms Taymar's edicts. She paced the length of the room, a twenty-foot by twenty-foot box with a bed in the top and bottom corners on the right hand side, one hand holding the note from the matron, the other knotted in her hair holding it back from her face.

"I don't think she is dear" Sally said, staring at herself in the small mirror hanging over the wash basin in the left and topmost corner of the room. Her back to the door, and to Rose, she glanced down at her copy of Ms Taymar's instructions and began re-reading that which was causing her friend such grief.

'In order to prevent the spreading of li-'

" **I WILL NOT CUT OFF MY HAIR**!" Rose howled defiantly, her volume making her friend jump and turn to her as she tossed the paper to the ground and stamped on it with a bare foot. Sally watched her display with a mixture of amusement and concern. It couldn't even be an hour past dawn yet. The way she was going, Rose would wake half the camp!

"It's a preventative measure" she put in quickly, trying to reason with her rancorous companion "to keep the threat of lice at bay." Met with a scandalised glare she went on, guessing at the reason behind the order. "We're new in the country, off a ship full of soldiers and rats. Can you blame the matron for wanting to make sure we aren't lice-ridden before letting us near patients?"

"I do _**not**_ " Rose bit out from between clenched teeth, "have **_lice_**!"

"Well nor do I!"

"Then why are we debating this!" The list was picked up and brandished by she who once again took to pacing to and fro as Sally watched. Bemused, the seated woman spoke up.

"I don't understand your problem with it" she huffed, turning away from her to rummage through the draws of the small cabinet the washbasin sat upon. Within the slender pair she found numerous items for personal grooming that had kindly been provided for their stay. Brushes and combs, even plain and sturdy hair clips were on hand, as well as an item that, when she saw it, convinced Sally that the matron had thought to facilitate the undertaking of her orders, not just to see them issued. Cautiously, she fingered the bone-handled implement, listening with one ear to Rose's grumblings and her angst-driven stomping. Contemplating her next move.

She could empathise to a point with her friend's horror at the thought of being shorn. Though Sally had learned through sharing quarters with her during their trip across the sea that outward expressions of femininity concerned Rose much more than they did her, the prospect of losing her hair to the cause did not light mirth or joy in her soul. She did, however, understand the need for minimising the risks of lice outbreaks. It would be another problem, were one to take place, put upon an already stretched medical facility. One which they could not afford.

Resolved, Sally squirreled the bone-handled implement into her lap quickly. "It's just hair Rose" she said, glancing over at her before turning back to her reflection in the mirror. She was decided. If it would take seeing it done to get Rose onboard, so be it.

"It's not _**just** _anything it...it's- Sally, what're you doing?" Her tone changed from outraged to curious to horrified as she watched her counterpart unfold what turned out to be a straight razor. "Don't you come near me with that!" she yelped, backpedaling quickly as the blade was raised.

"I'm not about to chase you with it, you silly thing" Sally huffed, reaching up to wind a lock of hair about her forefinger. She tugged it out to its full length, set the edge of the razor to it and sheared it away cleanly, watching as it fluttered down into the basin. Her gaze remained upon it for a number of breaths before she again looked at herself in the mirror, noting that a fine clump was missing now from above her right eye. She raised a hand and fluffed at what remained with her fingers, feeling the odd sensation of unevenly cut short hair prickling her skin.

At length, she blew a soft breath through her nose and concluded that, while strange, it certainly wasn't as mortal a thing as Rose seemed to think it would be. Tilting her head slightly as she regarded her reflection, she selected another lock, tugged it to full stretch, raised the blade again, and then cut it away. It's not as if she could stop now that she'd started.

Behind her Rose gaped, horrified.

"You'll end up bald if you carry on that way!" she said, coming forward and fretfully hovering at Sally's back as she lopped away, never once breaking eye contact with herself in the mirror.

"Don't be silly" came the preoccupied response, spoken amid a flurry of cuts and a rain of shorn hair. "I'm leaving enough to run a brush through."

Rose despaired. "You could run a brush through half an inch!" she said, wringing her hands at the thought of having so little hair left upon her head. She wasn't so childish that the thought of losing a gathering of inches perturbed her, but to lose anything more than three quarters of the length she had, the manicured ends of which touched the small of her back at present, was just ungodly.

"Exactly" Sally replied, half of her head now left more or less covered by little more than an inch of gently curling blonde fluff. "It's out of the way and very easy to keep clean."

With a huff Rose turned from the butchery taking place before the mirror. "You're mad" she said, throwing up her hands and making her way back to her bed. She had remade it after her night's sleep and had, prior to reading Ms Taymar's note, laid out her uniform neatly. Returning to it now, she rubbed a corner of the bluish-grey material that made up the majority of the practical dress between her fingertips to test its quality.

As well as the dress, they had each been provided with a white apron and a cap to keep their hair back, and in picking up and slipping on the latter Rose concluded that she could spare herself the Sally-with-a-razorblade treatment and keep her locks at shoulder length without them being burdensome. She had seen this Ms Taymar woman the night previous, and she certainly did not have nought but fluff upon her head. If it truly was the fear of lice that precipitated the order to clip their hair, she would not go to Sally's lengths unless the matron also did.

While her companion was dutifully absorbed by the mirror, Rose took the opportunity to make for the stove-room Dr Hall had mentioned the night previous. She wanted to wash before changing into her uniform and said so to Sally before cracking open the door and peeping out into the hall beyond. Thanks to the various shades of white that decorated the walls, the morning light that crept in through the windows seemed doubly bright compared to the candlelit and curtained dim of their quarters. Glancing to the right and then out along the corridor towards the ward, Rose found not a soul out to wander. She answered her counterpart's distracted, "Bring me back a pail, please" with a nod, missing the conspiratory grin she spoke it through before tiptoeing quietly, cautiously, into the hall.

Gathering her skirts to curtail their propensity for rustling, she made haste to the stove-room, betraying herself and her cautious approach when her curiosity was piqued by muffled voices from within the ward. She pressed herself lightly against the door to listen better, and heard fractured details regarding where the nurses with whom she and Sally had travelled were heading when they moved out with their respective contingents. Feeling the need to, she devoted a moment to pray for their safety before going about her business and easing open the door between corridor and stove-room.

A wall of heat hit her as soon as the door swung open and she squinted against it, letting out a discomforted 'Uhffff..' as she entered and approached the wide open-bellied stove at the back of the room. It was stone made from top to bottom and was heating, upon a metal grill, four bubbling pots of water. Above these two of these pots, hung across two wide-set horizontal poles, bed sheets were in the process of being cleansed by the rising steam.

Not wanting to pilfer water that was already being used, Rose took up a wooden pail and dipped it in the last pot, hefting it clear and earning a face full of steam for her trouble. She repeated this with a luckily found second pail, remembering Sally's request, then made slightly wobbly haste back to their quarters. Weighed down with a pail in each hand and finding it necessary to keep to near silence in her travels, appearing graceful was, at this moment, the least of her concerns.

Once she returned she gave the room her back briefly to nudge the door closed properly, and it was then, in that moment of inattention, that Sally struck.

"Rose!" she called, her voice purposefully made deep and commanding.

The woman yipped with fright at the sudden commotion, turned to look at she who had called to her, took a pause of three seconds to comprehend quite what she was looking at, then almost dropped the pails laughing. Sally stood between their beds, arms crossed over her chest, her shorn head tipped back proudly, feet apart, in her ragged travelling dress with a lock of her own hair caught between her curled upper lip and her nose. Clearly she had been waiting for Rose's return.

"I!" she proclaimed, raising a finger in an authoritative manner, "am Henry Barmouth! And I declare that you!" She pointed at Rose with her once raised finger. "Little nurse, will call me SIR!"

Sliding down the wall, the pails just about saved from crashing down with her, Rose laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks and Sally, her act over as soon as that last and strident 'SIR' left her lips, collapsed along with her.

"Sally!" Rose wheezed, dragging herself upright enough that she could see her friend's crumpled form where she had fallen cackling against her bed, "He doesn't even have a moustache you mad thing!"

"But God he **_should_ **have, Rose!" Sally laughed. "He **SHOULD** have! It might cover that spiteful face of his and make it more-"

"Shhhhhhhh!" Rose hushed quickly, crawling over to her friend's side and gathering her into an embrace that she easily returned. "If he hears you.." she snickered, wiping the other woman's cheeks free of mirth-brought tears.

"He'll what?" Sally laughed, holding the lock of hair she had fashioned into a crude facial adornment up over Rose's top lip and falling prey to another brief spate of cackling before regaining enough command over her faculties to opine, "Curse me with his spitefulness?"

"You could lose your place here, silly.." her briefly-tashed friend replied, a flicker of concern brought by that thought stealing across her face as she tried in vain to straighten the wear-and-tear-skewed collar of her companion's dress. "Then where would I be?"

Still chuckling softly, Sally smiled at her friend's words. "You'd be here" she said jovially, unperturbed by the thought of being exiled for her humour. Had she been caught by the man she had parodied she would have been contrite, but now, safe in her anonymity, she reveled in her cheek. It was well meant really. That Barmouth fellow, with all his finery and his painted-on smile, deserved a little ribbing.

"And I" she continued, "would have a pleasurable cruise back to London in the hold of a frigate! Without the panicked rush to learn a language to ruin it this time."

"Oh _honestly_ " Rose scoffed fondly, rolling her eyes and dragging Sally to her feet once their laughter had properly abated.

They parted then, to opposite ends of their quarters to bathe in privacy, backs turned, before changing into their uniform blues and whites and eyeing each other critically. They spent minutes fixing and primping, ensuring a proper fit and presentation before once again parting ways, Sally heading out to the ward as Dr Hall had instructed the night prior, while Rose attended to her hair by the mirror.

Both foresaw a mass of work ahead.

Neither was mistaken.

* * *

By the time Sally made it onto the ward that morning, the visiting nurses had long departed for their posts elsewhere within the State. As soon as she had stepped within the room Dr Hall, after having performed a double take of surprising force at the state of her hair, tasked her, since they had no patients to see to at present, with both cleaning the room from top to bottom to ready it for receiving the inevitable wounded, and with restocking the cupboards which sat between the operating room's outer wall and Ms Taymar's bed. They had been arranged there, the doctor told her, to discourage the soldiers from stealing supplies. The Oberschwester could be a frightening woman when she wanted to be, he said, and the thought of incurring her wrath deterred all but the most foolish.

Having met the woman as soon as she entered the room, Sally both could and couldn't fathom how she had earned such a reputation. She had a severe cast to her, certainly, but she was also kindly, industrious and quick witted with an infectious laugh and perceptive, wise eyes. She couldn't have been older than forty, but her presence felt ancient and commanded respect.

So struck by this was Sally that, when a chore took the matron from the room for a time, she asked Robin about it. His reply was spoken through a knowing smile.

"Tell me this" he said, handing over the next crate of supplies to his curious nurse. "Knowing Ms Taymar as you do, would you steal from these cupboards?"

"What?" Sally spluttered, scandalised. "Never."

"Exactly" Robin replied. "Never mind how it works. It just does."

With that in mind and glad of the leave she had been granted to resupply the Oberschwester's coveted shelves, Sally found herself, at around noon and after the ward was spotlessly clean, knelt between open doors, her head and both hands well within the cupboard she was stocking. Blind to the room, she did not notice the arrival of company until, reaching back for another item to add to the shelf she was working on, she felt fingers touch her own; their owner passing her the very thing she had sought.

Assuming her helper was either Dr Hall or Rose, Sally forgave them the start she got from the unexpected contact and spoke a companionable "Thank you" as she sat the item in its place and extricated herself from the cupboard's depths carefully. Straightening, she turned to add a smile to her thanks, but ended up gifting it to neither of the persons she expected to. Instead she found herself being rather shyly looked upon by a tall and rangy young man who was clad quite formally in deep blues and crisp whites. Not knowing him by sight, Sally consciously warmed her demeanour and set about making him feel welcome.

"Hello there sir" she said, conjuring her most sincere and pleasant smile. "May I help you?"

The response she got drained that warmth from her almost entirely.

"Hallo Schwester" he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot while trying his best to tamp down the cotton-mouthed unease new people, particularly new female ones, always brought out in him. "Willkommen im Camp."

The moment between those words and his next lasted an eternity for Sally. Inside, behind her newly shocked expression, her nightmare situation seemed to have come real. Here was a soldier, obviously a Hessian one, who could well have come to her seeking assistance and she, unpractised she, could barely understand enough of his language to render whatever aid it was he needed.

Before the panic could send her into a hyperventilation fit however, she realised that, unlike in her imagined nightmare, she had understood almost everything the young man had said. The word 'Schwester' was a mystery for now, but the rest she puzzled out with minimal trouble.

'Hello [Schwester]. Welcome to camp.'

That realisation brought the warmth back to her in a rush. She had caught those words! Had understood them! And damn it all if she wasn't about to thank him for the welcome in his own tongue when he spoke again.

"Ich heiße Thomas" he said through that same shy smile, patting himself on the chest to aid comprehension.

"Thomas..." Sally repeated, enraptured by the fact that she actually understood what he had told her. True, these words were simple. The most basic things Dr Hall's notes had taught her and Rose, and those which, through practicing with each other, they had learnt most quickly. And yes, the word 'heiße', like 'Schwester', was new to her. But it was a start! Here she was, weeks after her rushed practice in the bowels of a Frigate, being spoken to by a Hessian in his native tongue. And she was confident enough in what he was telling her to reply.

"Hallo Thomas" she said, trying to mimic his intonation while giving a polite curtsy. He grinned at her, bowing from the waist in response, and she actually managed to laugh around her introduction, "I...ich bin Sally."

"Hallo Sally" he mimicked, doing his level best to imitate her intonation. His 'S' came out as a 'zzz' and turned her name from 'Sally' to 'Zally', but that was nothing to complain about in her book. Here was progress! Here was comprehension! And a chance to flex her very...very...limited mastery of German with a seemingly willing and, more importantly, seemingly jovial native speaker. Her hands shook with nerves, and she knew, just knew, that she was butchering the words she said with her foreign accent and lack of experience, but she tried her best regardless.

"Yes, er...Ja, Hallo" she began, flushing at having stumbled at the first hurdle and gathering the scant few words she knew together into a somewhat coherent message.

"Ich...ich spreche nur ein...bisschen Deutsch" she managed, repeating the phrase she and Rose had worked on learning as a kind of shield against unintelligible barrages of unfamiliar words. They had decided against saying, 'I don't speak any German' to German people IN German right from the off. It was simply a contradiction of logic to say such a thing while speaking the language you profess to be unable to speak at all. Thus, 'I can only speak a little German' was Sally's introductory phrase of choice, and her recently arrived companion gave an understanding nod, seemingly glad both for her honesty, and for the fact that she was speaking in his mother tongue.

Shifting a little on the spot, much as Thomas had moments before, she raised a hand and made an inch between her thumb and forefinger, adding "...sehr wenig..." or 'very little' with entirely honest embarrassment and receiving, for her attempt at humour, a quirked grin and a huff of laughter.

"Aber..." she added quickly, wanting to get all of the pre-learned 'I'm new to this language, have mercy' phrases out of the way before her seemingly highly entertained company could interject and throw off her stride.

"Aber ich...ahh...Aber ich versuche zu lernen."

The words, declared with finality and punctuated with a pleased nod, were an expression of the wish to learn more of the language that was giving her trouble. They came out in a bit of a rush, but were intelligible enough that they merited a returned nod and another quirk of the lips from her Hessian guest.

The effort she was putting forth was rewarded most unexpectedly then, for when he next spoke it was in direct answer to her words. A continuation of their rickety conversion.

And it was in English.

"Und...ah...I" he said, a hint unsure of his words at first but brightening when Sally's face lit up in recognition. He copied her mimed inch with his forefinger and thumb, finishing his thought carefully. "Speak...little...Englisch...also."

So pleased was she by his attempt, and lacking the language skills to tell him properly, Sally beamed for his effort and clapped her hands lightly in appreciation, delighting in the rakish smile she was given in return. She drew breath to praise him in English, regardless of his professed lack in proficiency, when a third voice echoed across the room.

"Thomas!"

The poor man snapped to so quickly he almost tripped himself up, turning with all haste to see the curious though stern figure of Dr Hall emerging from the operating room. Sally turned sharply to face him also, cheeks flaming, and favoured him with a polite and, given his station as her direct superior, intrinsically necessary curtsey. She was about to greet him verbally, but was beaten to the punch by Thomas.

"Hallo Herr Doktor!" he enthused, covering his embarrassment at being caught engaging one of the nurses in conversation without any real reason but curiosity with exuberance. "Wie geht es dir?"

"Mir geht es gut, Thomas" Dr Hall replied without missing a beat. He watched the startled pair closely for a brief moment, wary from long experience of the overtures soldiers have a habit of making towards women in encampments such as this. Regardless of the fact that he knew Thomas well, and was certain that his reason for lingering on the ward was purely innocent, he was and always would be protective of his nurses.

Satisfied that he had made his presence felt, Robin gave the flustered soldier a pointed though not unkind look. "Lassen Sie in Ruhe, Junge" he said, nodding towards double doors at the far end of the ward. Vaulting the railing had been Thomas's favoured mode of entry into the triage since he first arrived in the camp, and he made his exit the same way after giving a deep bow to the still flushed lady and bidding both she and the doctor a hasty, and very _English_ , "G'bye!"

Shaking his head fondly, Dr Hall turned his attention to Sally, saying, "I do hope our Thomas didn't give you a fright. He's made it his mission to get to know the staff here as they come and go."

"Oh...Oh no, not at all" Sally replied, trying to rub the blush from her cheeks with her palms. "It's just that I'd never...never had the opportunity to...ah..." She gestured between herself and the direction of Thomas's escape. Robin understood.

"To speak German with a German" he said.

"Yes" Sally breathed, her shoulders slumping slightly with relief at their being on the same page.

Robin 'hmmm'd' knowingly. "I understand the feeling" he said, stooping to pack away the last of the supplies Sally had been putting to inventory when she had been interrupted. Though she fluttered at his back, uneasy about her task being taken over by he who had first given it to her, the chore was done too quickly for her to help further.

As Dr Hall stood again and closed the cupboard doors, Sally's curiosity got the better of her. "If I might ask, doctor..." she began, waiting for the return of his curious gaze and his nod of assent before continuing. "You called him, 'Our Thomas'. Have you known him long?"

Robin answered as he steered Sally into the operating room. More supplies needed inventorying and two sets of hands would cut through the work in half the time. "Thomas arrived here in the camp's early days" he said, sorting through the various bottles of herbs and unguents festooned across the operating table.

"He's only a young man, as you could probably tell by looking at him. Barely nineteen years old, and half way across the world from home fighting a war between countries that aren't his. He was in here wounded not three days after his arrival, and was transferred, after that, from the platoon he came here with to the home guard."

"Home guard?" Sally asked, sorting the vials Dr Hall passed to her into alphabetical order based on the labels affixed to their sides.

"Hm? Oh yes. The garrison based permanently at this encampment, that guards it and its close surrounds" Robin clarified, squinting at one vial in particular before handing it off to his curious assistant and taking up another. "Because we're quite the sizeable outpost, we need a standing guard in case we're discovered. So far we've been lucky. Two raids in almost a year is not bad going."

"Not bad at all" Sally had to agree, frowning faintly in thought. Something Dr Hall had said of Thomas caught in her mind as she packed the bottles she had sorted into their stand ready to be transferred into the cupboards lining the far wall.

"Is it rude of me to be curious over how Thomas came to be injured when he first arrived?" she asked. "I only ask because you mentioned raids and-" falling silent when Robin gave an amused chuckle and passed her another set of vials to sort, taking those she had packed neatly away and setting them in their appropriate place in the cupboard. When he'd arrived he had removed the front panel of each of the cupboard doors, allowing him to reach within quickly in an emergency without having to pull open doors and search when time was against him. The frames remained in place for sturdiness more than anything, and formed a handy barrier which stopped haste-quickened fingers from tipping entire rows of vials onto the floor.

"He'd fallen off his horse" he explained, returning to the table once he was happy with the first stand's placement. "Came in covered in cuts and with a badly bruised hip. He was lucky he didn't break anything honestly. We, Ms Taymar and I, feared he had done, for he couldn't walk right for a good four days after the accident."

"Good Lord" Sally gasped. "A break that serious would have surely killed him."

"Yes" Robin agreed. "He's a very lucky boy."

Giving a nod, Sally winced in sympathy for the poor lad's pain and mulled through the information she'd received while filling another little bottle rack with her latest acquisitions.

"He's a horseman then?" she asked.

"Well he fancies himself to be" Dr Hall chuffed. "He's always telling stories about dark riders and the heroics of the cavalry. They bring him courage, I think. Make him brave."

Sally couldn't help but give a giggle at the thought. "Dark riders you say? He's got quite the imagination, this Thomas, hasn't he." A tangential thought came then. "Are all of the cavalrymen stationed here Hessian?"

"Yes he does and no, they aren't." Robin said, gladly receiving the second rack of vials and finding it a place within the cupboard. "All told we have more Englishmen on horseback than we do German ones. It would seem though that the role of guide has fallen to the Hessians this time round, hence your having seen a couple of them mounted."

"Oh, I see."

"On a similar note" he went on, "Thomas's favourite tale at present concerns a Hessian. They always do, Thomas being Hessian himself. It makes the stories more relatable for him I think. Der Reiter, he calls him. 'The Rider', or 'The Horseman' if you prefer."

"How curious" Sally said, smiling at the prospect of a story. "What else is there to this tale, doctor?"

Robin chuckled softly at her inquisitiveness, an idea presenting itself at this fortunate turn in their conversation. He rested his elbows on the table between them, lacing his fingers thoughtfully and regarding the woman in silence for a moment, as if considering which part of the tale to tell next.

"You're truly interested?" he asked.

"Of course" she rejoined, eagerness making her curiosity shine a little in the dim room. She seemed so honestly keen that Robin almost, _almost_ felt remorse in springing his trap.

"Ask Thomas to tell you" he said, chuckling openly as her face fell.

"I...What? But...That was unkind!" Sally scolded jovially, forgetting herself for a moment in the comradery that seemed to have formed in the sharing of the tale and the talk of unlucky Thomas and his fall from his horse.

"Honestly Doctor, I don't know that I could" she continued, reigning in her manner consciously and taking up her task with the vials once more. Robin noticed this display of propriety and smiled for it, even though it was misplaced in these, their off-duty hours. He would allow her to become accustomed to that with time. For now, the mentor in him sensed the presence of confidence that needed shoring up.

"I'm sure you could" he said, giving his charge a reassuring smile as they got back to work. "Thomas is by far the least threatening Hessian member of the home guard, and I know for a fact that he'd love a chance to regale you. He was so excited about the arrival of the troops and your good selves that he rode out to meet you the night you arrived."

Sally blinked, again struck by a detail, her fingers sent fumbling over the vial she had just picked up. "He came to..."

"Yes. You'll remember him of course. The silly sod was yelling 'Die Engländer kommen' as he rode up to the camp. I heard him from my office. His sergeant nearly ran him through for all the noise he made."

"Oh my goodness!" Sally laughed, " ** _That_ **was Thomas? I can't b-"

"Sally!" a voice sounded from the doorway, deep with affect and profoundly masculine. With a jump and a gasp Sally turned and found Rose leant with theatrical aplomb against the door frame, an auburn lock of hair that had been fashioned into a crude facial adornment held between her thumb and forefinger across her top lip.

"Beautiful isn't it?" she said, batting her lashes and watching delightedly as her friend sputtered then succumbed to gales of laughter. Dr Hall, unused to though pleasantly surprised by Rose's brand of humour, also fought a noble but losing battle to keep a straight face. As the comic in question succumbed also, she flipped the faux-tash into her pocket as the matron, with whom she had spent the morning learning about her various duties, was drawn by the ruckus, intent on scolding her for shirking chores.

Yes, Rose thought as the scowling older woman approached, setting a wagging finger to work with a mirthful twinkle in her eye. I think I'll like it here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Wie geht es dir?" How are you?
> 
> "Mir geht es gut, Thomas." I am well, Thomas.
> 
> "Lassen Sie in Ruhe, Junge" Leave her alone boy.


	4. Thomas' Tale

It took Sally nearly three weeks to feel comfortable enough with both Thomas and her German to risk asking the young Hessian to recount the story Dr Hall had mentioned. As a proper Georgian lady she took interest from men-folk, particularly men-folk of the soldierly kind, with one pinch of discretion and two of suspicion, and despite the fact that Robin had assured her that the lad was simply curious and looking for more delicate company than the men of his division, she was cautious.

Gladly however, the gangly youth's interest was not restricted to her alone. Rose too found herself the recipient of curious glances, smiles and the occasional wave when her path and his would cross, though she at first was not treated to a verbal greeting. His silence frankly baffled her, but to Sally it was unsurprising. After their initial meeting, Thomas would have been wary of earning Dr Hall's wrath for distracting she and Rose while they worked, and since they often stuck together in their off duty hours she reasoned that the bashful young man likely felt uneasy about coming up and attempting to make conversation with them.

It's much easier on the pride, after all, to fumble through a conversation with one person than it is to try and engage two.

Sensing though that a fine prank might be done on Rose in these particular circumstances, Sally kept her thoughts on Thomas' silence to herself. She even started teasing her a little, saying that he had taken a fancy to her and was shy of speaking with her because of it. This well-meant prodding and conjecture went on for _days_ before Rose, much to her friend's amusement, decided to tackle their skittish seeming-admirer directly. When next she saw him loitering on the triage's balcony, she marched right out there to give him a proper dressing down. Unfortunately however, the detail that Sally's dutiful silence had kept from her made itself apparent as soon as her tirade ended with a huffed, "So what do you have to say for yourself?!"

Poor Thomas, lost by the quickly spoken avalanche of English and feeling more than a little embarrassed, replied as politely as possible. "Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Englisch, Schwester" he said, watching the indignation in her face become first confusion, then roaring embarrassment.

What she did in response endeared her to him instantly.

She switched to German first, feigning calm and saying, "Einen Augenblick bitte" with practised clarity. This phrase, 'one moment please', was one of those that she and Sally had learned to save them from tight spots such as this, and it came easily to her despite her absolute mortification.

Thomas, being a gentleman and finding the situation increasingly hilarious, answered with a slightly jerky nod and watched as Rose then turned, opened the door between the balcony and the blessedly sparsely populated ward and screamed, "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THAT HE'S HESSIAN?!" at the top of her lungs.

Three outcomes resulted from this course of action.

Firstly, irrespective of the fact that half of what she yelled escaped his comprehension, Thomas barely made it from balcony to street upright he was laughing so hard and Sally, within the ward, fared no better. She'd just about managed to reply, "His uniform, you silly thing!" before she too was lost to gales of mirth.

Secondly, royally piqued by her teasing, Rose didn't speak to her fellow nurse for three and one-half days.

And thirdly, the Oberschwester docked both women two days allowance; Rose for the ruckus she caused with her hollering, and Sally for earning and being the recipient of said hollering.

Fair was fair after all. There was no playing favourites here.

It was the eve of the fourth day of frigid silence when Sally, after two hours of honest contrition and apologies for being such a troublesome cur, managed to coax Rose out onto the balcony again with promises of tea laced with honey and a thimble's worth of liquor from the Quartermaster's store. She didn't tell the still indignant woman that it was Thomas' alcohol ration that she had used, with his permission of course, to lace the brew. Nor did she tell her that he would be out on the balcony waiting for them when they arrived. In the end though, after a little cold glaring and a mug of tea each, the ice was finally broken. That formative meeting became the starter for an every-other-day habit that persisted to the present, and now, on a warm late August evening with the three of them as thick as thieves, they and Dr Hall were gathered on the balcony to hear Thomas' rendition of what he called, 'Die Geschichte des Reiters'.

The story of the Horseman.

"Thank you again for coming out, Doctor" Rose smiled as she settled beside Sally, jostling her gently with her elbow and being jostled back before they took up their cups of tea and stirred a small glob of honey from the pot sitting by Robin's side into each with slender teaspoons. They had invited the man along both to give him a break from his seemingly endless duties on the ward, and to use him as a resource if their Hessian friend's verbiage passed them by as he recounted his tale. The Doctor knew this, and he didn't mind in the slightest.

"Thank you for the invitation" he replied, settling down with his back against the balcony's fence and sipping from his own cup - a dash of gin cut with water - while Thomas wrestled down one of the clean sheets from the drying poles that hung on the balcony's back side and tied it, with due ceremony, cloak-like about his neck. He knew the story he was sitting in on well, having sat through it at least twice since Thomas had distilled it from the gossip of his comrades, but looked forward to the telling regardless. The young lad had a flare for the dramatic that he found quite amusing in small doses.

As if to prove this, Thomas puffed out his chest and clapped his hands twice, facing his audience to call out, "Damen und Herren!" He preened with pride at how the nurses smiled and whispered to each other at the sight of him, and gave Doctor Hall a pointed, expectant look. This caught Robin mid-sip and he swallowed quickly, his role as the evening's designated translator seemingly more encompassing than first he'd thought.

"Es tut mir leid Thomas" he apologised, glancing at Sally and Rose and saying, as his Hessian counterpart had moments before, "Ladies and gentlemen."

Thomas beamed. "Die Geschichte des Reiters ist blutig" he said, his expression becoming serious as he spoke. "Blutigen und gewalttätigen." A glance at Robin, who gladly obliged.

"The story of the Horseman is bloody. Bloody and violent."

The nurses huddled closer together, both more excited than fearful despite the gory preface. Sally even dared a little request of their story-teller. "Thomas? Englisch bitte? Tell little bits in English, maybe?" She mimed their inch between her thumb and forefinger as she spoke, and although he looked a hint daunted at first, Thomas gave a little nod.

"Ein bisschen" he agreed, copying the mimed inch and adding, "Später" to buy himself some time to gather the English he had to share with them. He wasn't terrible by any means, having practised with the staff, soldiers and occasional visitors from the farm a quarter mile along the road. He was simply wary, even now, of showing himself up in front of his friends. Nodding came from the nurses at his words, small ones like those - like 'a bit' and 'later' - coming easily to them now, and he favoured them and Robin with another smile as he continued.

"Der Reiter kommt aus Hesse-Kassel"

"The Horseman comes from Hesse-Kassel" Robin said, adding, "which is one of the larger Landgraviates – territories held by a Landgrave – that was created when the Landgraviate of Hesse was split up many, many years ago" to help his very English charges keep up. When they nodded their understanding, Thomas resumed his story as Robin did his dutiful translation.

"Er wurde hier gesandt um den Aufruhr zu unterdrücken."

"He was sent here to suppress the rebellion."

"Zu kämpfen.."

"To fight.."

"Zu töten.."

"To kill.."

Thomas tilted his head slightly, nodding towards Sally and Rose. "Für dein König."

Robin pursed his lips to keep from smiling at the show he was putting on. "For your king."

The nurses braved a glance at each other, then looked back towards Thomas with cautious curiosity. "He's an ally then?" Rose asked, the doctor translating the question at Thomas' slightly confused glance.

"Ist er ein Verbündeter?"

The young soldier drew in a breath, seemingly contemplating the question. "Ally.." he began, piecing together what he wanted to say carefully. "Ally is...friend. Der Reiter...he is...not that. Not friend. He is...ahh..." A glance for Robin. "Söldner?"

"Mercenary" the doctor supplied, pleased to hear him exercising his English.

"Mercenary" Thomas repeated, testing the word. Pleased with it, he gave a nod. "Mercenary. Ally..." He shook his head, waving the idea away. "Means nothing."

"So he'd kill us?" Sally brooked guardedly.

Another quick look from Thomas to Robin. The latter sipped from his cup before translating, "Würde er uns töten?" and the former, hearing this, smirked fiendishly.

"Wenn Sie waren in seinem Weg, ja" he said.

"If you were in his way, yes."

Puffing up again as the nurses winced, Thomas spread his arms wide and moved on with his tale; his use of English becoming a hint more bold as he went on. "Der Reiter go over ze landt. Follows ze soldiers wie ein Hund auf einem Geruch."

"Like a dog on a scent" Robin put in quietly.

"Follows to battle, und ven it come he lead his horse in vollem Galopp-"

"...At full gallop..."

"-und nimmt die Köpfe seiner Feinde!"

"And takes the heads of his enemies."

Again Sally and Rose chanced a glance at each other. This time though, trepidation reigned. They huddled closer still as Thomas waded on gleefully, and as he began to describe his protagonist they translated his words before Robin did to distract themselves from the unease unfurling in their bellies.

"Er ist groß " Thomas said, puffing up yet again and trying to make himself look larger than he was with his sheet-cloak.

"He is...big?" Rose guessed.

"Tall" Sally put in thoughtfully, Robin smiling at their effort. "Or both maybe...broad and tall."

"That makes sense" her auburn-haired compatriot replied, waving Thomas on.

"Mächtig" he said, tapping his biceps to help them along.

"...Mighty?" Sally tried. "That sounded like mighty to me."

Rose snuffled. "In English you mean."

"Well yes."

"I'll say...powerful?" She glanced at Robin. "Is that right, Doctor?"

He nodded indulgently. "Correct Rose. Powerful. Strong. Mighty would also work Sally, so your guess wasn't far off."

A toast from a teacup later, Sally turned her grin first upon Robin, then Thomas. "What else? He's tall and strong..."

"Gewalttätig."

"Violent" they chorused, recognising the word.

"Er trägt schwarze Rüstung."

"He wears black armour" the doctor supplied at Rose's slightly fuddled glance.

"Seine Klinge ist so heiß wie Höllenfeuer."

And again he assisted. "His blade is as hot as Hellfire."

"Und sein Pferd ist riesig und schwarz wie die Nacht!"

Rose perked up now. "I got horse there" she put in, looking to the doctor for affirmation. "Pferd is horse, isn't it?"

"That it is" he confirmed, glancing between his nurses with obvious amusement. "Can you piece the rest together?"

"Schwarz is...black...I think." Sally volunteered after a moment's thought. "So...a black horse?"

"A 'riesig' he said..." Rose added. "Riesig...huge? A huge black horse?"

"That's right" Robin smiled. "His horse is huge, and as black as night."

Listening as they dissected his words, Thomas beamed and shared the next detail; his second favourite, all told. "Seine Zähne sind wie Messer."

"His..." Sally began, tripping over a word. His...Rose" she glanced to her friend, "Zähne?"

Rose in turn glanced at Robin. "That's teeth, isn't it?"

He tilted his head a hint to the right in acknowledgement. "Correct again."

Sally's brow furrowed in thought. "So his teeth are-" She hushed when Rose patted her arm sharply, the solution coming to her in a rush.

"Messer is the word for knife!" she enthused, turning compelled though confused eyes on Thomas. "His teeth are like knives. I've got that right, haven't I? Bin ich richtig?"

"Ja!" Thomas said, tapping his front teeth for emphasis. "Like knives."

"Why are they like that?" Sally asked, horror in her voice. "Did he file them? Did they break?"

"Made so himself" Thomas proclaimed, pleased that he was able to follow those questions with relative ease. "Did it for fear...to make enemies fear him...make them know him. He...ah...ein symbol?" He glanced quickly at Robin, but found the concern he had about his words allayed quickly.

"Das Wort ist dasselbe auf Englisch" the doctor told him.

The word is the same in English.

Thomas preened, returning his attention to his story. "Ein symbol for fear. Zey see him coming to battle-" He chuffed out a laugh and swept his cloak-sheet back as he pointed out along the cobbled path beyond the balcony. "Zey run! Er ist der Teufel zu seinen Feinden."

Rose frowned faintly, caught on a word. "Teufel?" she repeated, directing her question to Thomas now, not Robin. "What is Teufel?"

The young Hessian thought for a moment, trying the word, "Plague?" before that which he was searching for came to him. "Nein! Devil. Not plague. Das Wort ist 'Devil'. Ze Devil to his enemies." His courage soaring at having puzzled things out, he barrelled on. "Bloot everyvere he goes, zey speak. Again ant again...bloot. Even ze men of Gott fear him...Speak he bringt ze Satan vit him. Bevare, zey speak. Zey speak, 'Tod auf dem Pferderücken'...dead...no, no, death on horseback. Death on horseback. Omen of death for them! And best! Und am besten von allen! Er kennt diesen Ort!"

"He knows this place" Robin supplied in much calmer tones than Thomas.

"Er ist hier gewesen!"

"He's been here."

Sally and Rose shared another look, this one filled equally with shock, trepidation and doubt. "That..." Sally brooked, looking between the ebullient Thomas and Doctor Hall's much more sedate, relaxed figure. He was having another little sip from his cup as she spoke. "I do hope you aren't serious."

"Well..." Robin mused, regarding the three as Thomas, his tale complete, crouched on his haunches beside an unease-paled Rose - his cloak-sheet billowing with the movement. Holding the young man's hopeful gaze a moment he said, "We are the largest camp in the vicinity, so if he was travelling in these parts he likely would have at least passed through at some point."

"So..." Rose brooked, uncertain, "he's...an actual person, this Hessian Reiter?

The doctor was thoughtful. "Honestly, I couldn't say. Rumours circulate easily amid bored soldiers, but I have to say that Thomas' story is based on one of the more persistent ones. You can't go three days in these parts without hearing about The Horseman if you're really listening out for mentions of him. He's something of a macabre folk hero to the Hessians here. Some, like Thomas here, think he's flesh and blood, while others think the deeds attributed to him have been done by many people and just...stuck onto a conveniently frightening mantle for the war. One thing is certain though. The stories of those deeds keep coming. I've heard more than one Hessian captain returning from an incursion with word of Der Reiter's presence. Most though speak only of the feel of him. Of some oppressive thing. Their favourite description at present is, Der Geschmack von Blut auf der Luft auf eine kalte Nacht."

Thomas perked up in recognition, beaming an excited, "Ja mein herr!" as he gently, kind-naturedly, wormed Rose's cup from her fingers and pilfered a sip.

Too caught up with listening to Robin to much care about the theft, Rose asked, "What's that?", apprehension making the question softer than she'd intended it to be. At the doctor's reply, "The taste of blood on the air on a cold night" she felt herself pale a hint more than she had already.

"And this fellow..." Sally brooked then, leaning her shoulder to Rose's companionably as she sensed her discomfort. "He's said to have been here?"

"Hearsay again" Doctor Hall replied. "As I said, if he is a real person who has the role the men here have cast him in - the great Hessian scourge of the enemy - it would be remiss of him not to at least know of this place. There are those here who'd put gold to having either seen him pasturing his horse in the fields, stealing a drink from one of the troughs on his way through or simply lurking quietly in the shadows, watchful but always silent and unreachable. They speak of him as if he's a ghost at times - seeing him from the corner of the eye only to turn and find him gone - and that, amongst other things, makes me wonder whether he is anything more than tales."

Rose spoke up next, equal parts off-put by the idea of shadowy ghost men lurking in the night and wanting of information that would help dispel her fears. "Oh?"

"As news of his exploits, or supposed exploits, gets back here" Robin explained, his words careful, considered, and geared towards reassuring his charges as best he could, "the sightings redouble. It's as if he's conjured from the air when the men want to see him; his presence imagined by the curious, the nervous, and the war-hungry." He paused a moment, shaking his head. "Were he really in the area and actively visiting this place as often as they suggest though, he wouldn't only be glimpsed in the shadows from an eye's corner. He'd be seen strolling along the road going about his day like everyone else. This isn't a place where he'd have to hide away. This is friendly territory."

Those facts, it turned out, were of small comfort to Sally and Rose. Neither woman for the rest of the evening could stop herself from giving every shadowed area a second look, particularly after they and Thomas parted company and went about their respective eves separated from their cosy little group. Luckily for them though, there was no presence about that tasted like blood on a cold night; no figures in the shadows or eyes looking back when they stared into those shadows to make sure they were indeed alone.

Stillness reigned, and it soothed them.

Far beyond the triage's walls however...far beyond Sally and Rose and the false veil of safety the establishment and its residents portrayed on the edge of a war zone...there was movement. A regal equine head, black as the gathering night, rose from and was silhouetted against the half-mile of rolling wheat fields by the setting sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Englisch, Schwester" I only speak a little English, Sister.
> 
> "Bin ich richtig?" Am I right?
> 
> "Und am besten von allen!" And best of all!


	5. September Fare

It was a balmy evening in mid-September that saw Sally and Rose - released from their duties in the presently wondrously quiet triage for a little while lest they both end up stark raving - wandering back from the local village with baskets of wares in hand. The trip wasn't a chance for slacking, much as the ladies laughed and smiled as they chattered on their way to and from the homestead on the edge of the settlement. The soldiers based at their encampment protected the area; kept the war that raged around them as far off as they possibly could. In return for that good grace the villagers donated what food they could spare, and today's offerings were full of promise.

"There's honey in here, Rose!" Sally giggled, pushing the cloth topper of her basket aside to reveal the bounty within. "Honey and apples and fresh bread too!"

"I've the same!" Rose beamed. "Along with four portions of cured meat and-" She tested the basket's weight. "What must be four slabs of butter, going on the heft to this. I could knock a man out if I swing it at his head!"

"Knock a horse out, more like" Sally chortled, adjusting her burden against her hip as they wandered on. The road was straight for a good while yet, the route uncomplex between camp and village. Truth be they were once part of the same settlement; what was now the camp being the farthest-most farmstead the village counted as its own. Not a twenty minute walk each way, the path was cobbled and ran along the edge of a well-tended wheat field that was slowly being relieved of its spring crop. Golden heads, a little like Sally's, bobbed here and there in the gentle breeze; in the beginnings of dusk's low, warm light.

A crackle of distant gunfire turned both women on an English penny. They clasped at each other with their free hands, eyes searching, halfway towards the ditch between the path and the forest that sat snugly against its untended edge before either much realised they'd moved at all. Get low and be quiet when gunfire sounded; that was what they'd been taught back at camp. Get low, be quiet, abandon what you're carrying and make haste for safe ground. Your life is worth more to us here than any wares you might bring back.

Their surrounds crackled again, no closer but no further away either. They were at least twenty minutes out from the camp.

"We need to leave!" Rose whispered, her voice harsh and low; close to her friend's ear. She clung to Sally's hand with all she had, tugged at her but she was rooted where she stood. Fixed on a spot back the way they'd come. Rose tugged her again, rasped her name. "Sally!?"

It was then she saw what her friend did. Perhaps one hundred metres back there strolled a lone cavalryman. The gathering dark did nothing to help them discern his appearance from this distance, but the flag the man might have appeared to fly mattered less than dirt to Rose in that moment. She'd be damned if she was going to let some rogue enemy get the jump on her because she was used to mounted guardsmen getting under foot. Quick as a wink, she dropped her basket and hauled stunned Sally down off the road and into the underbrush. The woman's basket crashed to the floor, her half-squawked protest dying the moment she felt the prickle of dried and desiccated foliage on her palms. They huddled there, tense and still but for their breathing as the realisation that'd moved Rose at such a clip dawned too on Sally, and the cavalryman they'd both seen but neither recognised moved up on them.

Hoof-beats announced him, slow and easy and unsuited to the situation unfolding around them; to the cough and splutter of gunfire that was carried on the wind. He should be panicked, Rose thought, in a rush to escape or to rejoin the battle. But no. Here he was, easing his mount to a halt without a word and leaning, his tack and armour creaking ominously, to inspect the baskets she and Sally had abandoned. Here he was, his sword slowly unsheathed and used to knock the apples they'd carried loose with a nudge; sending a couple rolling, falling down upon the women in the underbrush. Both caught whimpers behind their teeth as the cavalryman lingered, looked over for the lost fruits and, by the grace of God, Rose was sure, God, earth coloured dresses and the dimming light, missed their presence by sight.

He remained for not a minute or two, but to Sally and Rose the time stretched into eternity. Quiet murmurings passed between cavalryman and steed, too low to be made out by their listening ears. Both man and beast were ever wary of traps set by the enemy; of ambushes sprung from treelines and ditches; across fields. But here? Here on this road and through these square miles they and their ilk kept safe? No. There was too great an allied presence for intruders to go unfound for long enough to set up anything so demanding of secrecy. Straightening in the saddle, the cavalryman sheathed his blade and nudged his horse onward.

"Schnell, Gänger" he said.

In the ditch, at those words and the echo of hooved steps, Sally and Rose went wide eyed.

"German!" Sally hushed excitedly, the bubble of tension that the presence of the unknown man had caused popping like so many spent soap suds. "He's Hessian, Rose! We're alright!" she enthused, scrabbling through the tangled branches and vines Rose had secreted them beneath to reach the path. Her skirts smeared with mud, leaves and twigs everywhere, she'd have looked a right sight to the Hessian rider had he still been close enough to see her. All she saw of him though was a shadowed shape prowling through the gold wide open on the other side of the path. He was moving at a brisk clip due east, off to do only Heaven knew what, and Sally felt herself smiling after him; relieved after so great a scare that they had, in fact, been in no danger. Such remained her opinion even as Thomas' wild tale about the man he'd called _the Devil to their enemies_ came back to her and led her into drawing quiet parallels between the mounted man in the field and the Hessian fiend who was an ally to the English and ostensibly roamed these wilds. It couldn't be him, she told herself. Myths and legends were just those; comforting tales for young men to hear and tell and aspire to. They didn't walk these paths, and certainly didn't amuse themselves by nudging apples about the place with swords.

A sickly cough at her back drew her gaze round to Rose, a thick copper tang hitting her the moment she turned and faced her that sent her mind blank for thoughts of dark Reiters. Rose had clambered from the ditch not seconds after Sally, but was so close behind her on the ascent that she'd had to escape their muddy, leafy hide a few feet further along the path than her friend had. It was only when she stood, almost losing her footing to a new slickness on the cobbles, that she looked down at herself and realised what that slickness was.

Mortified and fighting down the urge to gag herself, Sally ripped the apron she wore off before Rose could speak a word, turned its clean inner side outwards and offered it to her as she approached. Neither woman could rightly claim to be squeamish about blood so far into their work at the camp, but that didn't make its sudden appearance, scent, or the sensation of so much of it on the skin either pleasant or less of a shock.

The doffed apron set to wiping off her hands as best she could, Rose edged away from the half-coagulated pool to free herself of its scent and quell the urge she had to vomit. Sally followed her closely, seeing to the knot on the back of Rose's apron so she could remove the sodden thing the moment she had the focus to. Presently though, she was all hands and words.

"No one could be as calm and methodical as he was if they were bleeding like that" she said, the words tumbling out on a tight breath as she wiped furiously between her fingers with the rough cloth. " _No one_. That's death's blood. _**Gouts**_ of it. There's no way- No way on Earth-"

"If it's not his, then where did it come from?" Sally pressed, glancing along the path each way and then back out over the field. She'd lost sight of the horseman now. It was an effort not to worry about him. "The horse?"

"With a gait that steady?" Rose shook her head, finally tugging her apron off and tossing it over the glinting pool. The garment was a lost cause. It may as well be put to its final use deterring flies for as long as possible. "We've seen them go lame at camp from a poorly placed foot. No horse would be up and walking after losing all that, no matter how well trained it is."

The ladies looked at each other for a long moment then, trying to process what they'd come upon and what they could, or should, do about it. Instinct told them to hightail it back to camp as fast as their feet could carry them. The rippling gun fire, Hessian guards wandering the byways or not, was enough to turn them both to stone with fear; never mind mysteriously appearing, unexplainable pools of half dried, slowly thickening, blackening blood. Duty though, their duty to the men their camp housed and their triage cared for, tugged at them each differently. It drew Rose's attention to their fallen baskets, and Sally's to the break in the fence through which the rider had slipped into the wheat field. She was fastening one of her small kerchiefs the post nearest to the break when her friend called to her.

"Help me with these, Sally. I don't want to touch the wares with messed hands, and we need to get back."

"Let me just-" Slender fingers gave the kerchief a final tug into place. "There."

"What's that for?" Rose wondered, welcoming Sally at her side to shore up and repack as much of the baskets' contents as she could. Blessedly none of it had ended up caked in the gore left in the horseman's wake.

"I'm going to tell the guard captain about all this. You know, Brandt?"

The implication of cheek in Sally's tone perked Rose's mood up a hint. She knew Captain Brandt quite well, certainly, though nowhere near as improperly as her counterpart loved to tease her about. "I haven't a clue who you mean" she replied, giggling softly as they hoisted their baskets and got on their way. Messed hands or not, she could heft. "Is that your favour left for him? That slip of cloth on that post?"

Sally spluttered in faux indignance. "Oh my dear, I couldn't usurp you like that" she said, hurrying along to put distance between them and the hellish pool; to distract Rose from what'd happened. "Really though, I want to give him directions back here. There aren't any better markers on the way, so 'where I tied my kerchief to that fence post' will need to do."

A frown creased Rose's brow at that. The woman had more hope in her than was wise, at times. "…I doubt that Hessian will be alive for Brandt to find if I'm wrong and that blood was his. You do know that, Sally..."

"I do" Sally nodded, solemn again after their jestful moment. "But I know as well that I didn't recognise him; not by voice or sight or steed. Brandt might, if he finds him. If he really was bleeding that badly and-" Her expression pinched in distaste. "Expires, in that field. It'll put his family's minds at ease to know he died fighting; to not just have to wait and wait and wait, never knowing what became of him."

* * *

The lanterns were lit by the time Sally and Rose returned to camp. Their state drew offers of aid as quickly as their baskets of provisions did greedy fingers; Ms Taymar, Dr Hall and none other than Captain Brandt gathering round first to hear their story - once the cloud of concerned faces milled back to their evening business - and to then whisk them into the triage for a wash before lights out. What they shared of their experience was nothing new to Brandt, much as he didn't let on as much in front of such delicate company. It wasn't for them to hear about what men like the one they saw today got up to in warzones; to hear that he himself, cordial and friendly to them, always willing to speak and listen, routinely cleaved enemies in twain when battle was joined without second thought or waver.

They knew already, but didn't _**know**_.

He wouldn't be the one to destroy that innocence. He would however ride out and cast eyes around, during his night time patrol, for the Hessian cavalryman Sally and Rose swore they'd seen. The man sounded like a mercenary from their vague descriptions; the absence of uniform colours giving him away as either the puppet of some German princeling or a once-soldier with a taste for killing. Neither sort sat highly on Brandt's confidence or trust scale, but he wouldn't turn his nose up right off if the man was working in ways that benefited him and his men.

It was midnight when the small corps Brandt selected from the sum of the Home guard's membership rode out, lanterns at their fore and aft, onto the cobbled road beyond the camp. September lent a coolness to the evenings that'd been missing for too long, and it gave the lads an air of jollity as they kept up their guard. There were four of them but for the captain; Hessians, Thomas and Eduard, and Englishmen, Peter and Michael. Brandt himself hailed from Saxony, but split his time and his tongue between his countrymen and the gents from the isles more or less equally. Favouritism only had one place in his company - the card table. Otherwise, "Wir sind alle gleich."

We are all the same.

They came upon the wheat field, the cotton slip tied to a post near a break in the fence intact still, like the piled aprons and the blood, now dry, on the floor. Three of the four men were to wait where they stood while one and the captain trod the path the horseman had earlier. It was Thomas who won the toss; though he was unsure, looking back at his comrades as he and his mare Astrid followed Brandt's lantern through the dim, whether that was good luck on his part or bad. The same wild tales that had sprung to Sally's mind when she'd watched the dark rider disappear into the field all clamoured in his head now; the exploits of the infamous Horseman feeling just a little too...close to him for comfort while he was out in the open, wheat stalks brushing his knees, instead of on the balcony wrapped up in his storytelling sheet.

The young man was so lost in his thoughts that the scent of copper on the air didn't register as real until Brandt's iron hand locked on his reins and stilled his mount. There, in a clearing roughly hewn by sword strikes near the edge of the field, stood what from the back, to Thomas, looked like a raggedy scarecrow. He looked to Brandt, confused.

"Was geht?" he asked. What's going on?

The captain shook his head, swallowed thickly, then moved to dismount. "Nicht bewegen" he ordered. Do not move. Not one inch, he added in his mind as he edged closer to the spectacle before him. The scarecrow-looking-thing was lit up by a small fire near its base - made and tended for a while before being abandoned. The flames licked up at the cool air, casting light and forming shadows over it and its immediate surrounds. A hint of uniform caught Brandt's eye as he neared - not English or Hessian - shallow breaths and beads of sweat brought from the heat and the smell, less panic at what he saw. Looking up as rounded the tableau, his breath caught; nausea hitting him square in the gut.

This was no scarecrow by any man or God's definition. This was a man recently gutted, his viscera hanging low near his knees. A dagger had taken his throat back to the spine; the corners of his mouth back to his ears. His head was arched back, tied there with twine. Already, the crows had taken his eyes.

" _Was geht_?!" Thomas called again, concerned and mounted still. He moved to approach, to guide his horse closer, but Brandt had him figured before he could.

" **VERLASSEN THOMAS**!" he roared. " **LAUF JUNGE**! **ZURÜCK ZU CAMP**! **HILFE BEKOMMEN**! _**LAUF**_!"

Thomas didn't need any more telling. He spun his horse and spurred it like hell was on his heels the entire journey back to camp. It would take captain Brandt, the remainder of his corps and the help that Thomas returned with two hours to cut the butchered man down. The ladies at the triage weren't told then that he was the source of the blood, nor were they given any cause to believe, when Thomas turned up on the balcony the morning after his night in the wheat field looking sickly pale and drawn, that he was suffering from anything more sinister than a bit of an upset stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Schnell" Quickly
> 
> "VERLASSEN THOMAS! LAUF JUNGE! ZURÜCK ZU CAMP! HILFE BEKOMMEN! LAUF!" Leave Thomas! Run Boy! Back to camp! Get help! Run!


	6. Der Apfel

One and one-half days after Brandt's grizzly find, the crackle of gunfire that'd made the air in the camp on the hill thick with tension melted away into silence. A portion of the strife gripping the land, it seemed, was over. Instead of the scent of gunpowder, it was that of freshly soaped and beaten linen – hung out on the triage's balcony - that greeted the soldiers toing and froing along the camp's main thoroughfare in the early morning light. In place of tense guards and an ever ready contingent of cavalrymen, there wandered the quartermaster about his rounds, Dr Hall out for his daily constitutional and a page carrying messages between the English and German high commands. Each faction occupied one half of the settlement in terms of barracks and bed-down space – the English on the triage's side of the camp and the Hessians the opposite – and while there was no bad blood to speak of between them their commanders were each equally glad of the space they had to impose their own brand of order and discipline on their forces. It simply made for a more orderly way of things.

The page was on his way back, a new missive in hand, when he noticed the passage of another kind of courier. This one was mounted, his garb non-descript, and he had just received, unless the young man's eyes were playing tricks, a missive from the hand of director of the triage: Henry Barmouth. Handed over by hand and tucked away quickly, the missive and its courier made haste to whatever destination they were set to – likely, the page reasoned, one of the dotted string of allied camps like this one that fanned out north and west. What with battle being joined and having ended so recently, the director was likely wary of running low on supplies if a torrent of wounded men fell through their gates without proper preparations being made beforehand. Wondering at the man's foresight since no official news had yet reached the camp of the battle's end, the young man hustled back to his duties. It wasn't for him to second guess people so far above his station; it was fast feet he needed, not so much a thinking brain.

Mr Barmouth's foresight, not a day later, proved to be almost _clairvoyant_.

The deep night had closed in by the time the weak and weary were ferried through the gates by Brandt's patrolling corps. Their captain at the column's head, Michael flanked the raggedy battalion's fore to mid reaches and their comrades Peter and Eduard the mid to rear; keeping the exhausted moving and in as high spirits as they could muster with little nudges, little ditties and sips from their water-skins. Over a third of their number, to hear the wounded tell it, had fallen in this latest skirmish. An ambush had been laid, a line of gunners backed by cavalry and foot soldiers taking their otherwise sturdy band by surprise. It was only the cover of the forest and some unexpected aid that saw them through; a scattering of men, their numbers uncertain, their colours and banners their own, roared through the enemy's ranks without warning – an ambush on an ambush – and brought them into such disarray that the soldiers could rally and turn the tide. Vulture-like the uncounted group circled, picking off the fallen where they fell and then evaporated into the forests from whence they came. They were opportunists – mercenary in the most literal sense – but their aid was true and their presence, at least in spirit, remained with the battalion still.

At the back of the column, a lone man rode; bannerless but for the crests emblazoned upon his leathers. He'd picked up the battalion's trail a mile back and decided to shadow them on the off-chance their passage acted as bait to any lurking pockets of enemy soldiers. Keeping clear of all but the most observant's notice, he remained on the heels of the weary group as it breached the camp's gates and was set upon by helping hands that he himself had no use for. This place, he knew, offered both safe harbour to sleep in and the chance to restock his supplies between trips out into the wilds. Even solitary he wouldn't discount that opportunity.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon by the time the triage was in order. So many were the wounded that makeshift cots needed making up beside the beds to ensure everyone had a place to rest and be tended. Gladly though, after a sleep all but three of those propped up on thickly folded sheets and pillows and blankets were well enough to be put up in the barracks while the remainder of their number stayed at rest and were cared for within Ms Taymar's walls. The matron herself sat in the corner of the ward, a cloth set to dabbing at her face and neck following the day's stress and toil. She and Dr Hall had just finished an inventory and were pleased to see that, while Mr Barmouth would need to send for essentials soon, their stores hadn't been completely depleted by the rush. Add that to how well her nurses – she'd adopted Sally and Rose as hers weeks ago, much to Robin's amusement – had faired in the face of that emergency and the day was looking as bright as the blue skies outside the windows.

The ladies in question were still hard at work now, finishing their rounds on the ward and tending to any needs their patients had. Rose, Ms Taymar noticed, had settled between a couple of gentlemen with her well-loved Bible, reading passages to them as they rested, shared their experiences with her and found what solace they could in the verses. Sally on the other hand was dispensing cups of water and administering tinctures that promoted sleep to those who'd found rest hard to come by because of their injuries. They'd barely had a moment to breathe, the pair of them, so when the sandy haired lady's rounds came to an end and she lingered longingly by the doors between balcony and triage, Ms Taymar shooed her out into the fresh air with all the gusto she had left in her. Rose too, she declared, was free to take time for herself when she pleased; a fact that was met by a gleeful smile and a long stretch from the young lass in question. She'd hustle off in a few minutes, Rose said.

Just after these next few passages.

Finally free of the triage's confines, Sally let out a long breath as she, like Rose had, gave a long, arms over the head, up on tiptoes stretch. Her hands went to her hair as she relaxed, over her face, her neck; something of self-comfort in the gesture. She'd made it through the most trying day she'd yet faced without keeling over panicked or overwhelmed. Indeed, only once had her breath gone short and she'd needed a moment to gather her composure, and that was just after witnessing Dr Hall removing lead from a gaping fissure in a very much awake, aware and agonised man's lower leg. His recovery wasn't certain, the doctor had told her. It was all they could do to keep the wound clean and the man as comfortable as their supply of pain relief – small as it was – allowed.

Settling against the balcony's railing, Sally cast an eye out over the camp and did her best to set thoughts of the day's tribulations aside for a little while. She and Rose were never really off shift – if an emergency occurred she was expected to drop what she was doing and attend, no matter what her doings were – but her downtime would feel hollow, unused, if she spent it lingering on work. The camp seemed full to bursting with new faces following the night-time arrival of the thirty battered and exhausted warriors they'd taken in and seen to. A rough half of that number had been mounted, so along with weary soldiers going about their business there strode the occasional horse and handler on their way to or from the fields that bracketed the camp's far edges. There the men could find a lick of peace and the horses a spot of fresh wheat or new grass shoots to nibble on; a respite from the bustle of the camp's now full stables. All bar the army – whose horses, like the soldiers, had their allotted lodgings – kept their mounts warm, fed, and watered there and it was towards this building that Sally was gazing when the quartermaster bustled over. A stocky man, more arms than much else, he tipped his cap to the nurse on the balcony as he approached from the Hessian barracks opposite the triage. The deep basket he held looked ominously like a favour, and his opening gambit –

"Lovely day, madam!"

\- was too chirpy for the usually severe man not to be harbouring requests.

"It is" Sally said, gesturing to the basket and hoping that, incoming errands or no, she might snaffle some extra provisions for herself and Rose to share. "Are those for us?" She could see from above that there were carrots inside; carrots and apples and other small fare that would be lovely warmed in tea or cooked into a broth.

At her question, the quartermaster smiled beneath his bristly moustache. "A portion can be" he said, setting the basket down on the little stairway leading from the path up to Sally's vantage point. He waited until she'd come down and was picking through its contents before springing what she'd rightly assumed was a little trap. "If you'll take the rest about the camp for me. I've got a meeting with our good English Captain to get to – supply routes 'n that, very boring – and wanted to ferry the rest of this about the camp since we've got new men about; new mounts and riders. Even with rations, on days like today charity's a boon, don't you think?"

"I do" Sally agreed, more amused than irked by the man's request. It was hardly work to wander about offering treats from a basket, and it gave her an excuse to potter down to the stables and slip her favourite residents a few little treats once any loitering cavalrymen were seen to. Moving down onto the path properly, she hefted the basket up onto her hip.

"It's not problem. I'll see it done now."

"Thank you" the quartermaster breathed, relieved. "I was going to get a Hessian lad to do it while I was over there, but he scampered off before I could catch hold of him."

Sally blinked. "Hessian lad?"

"Aye, One of Brandt's boys. The young one. Bit twitchy these past couple of days; stayed in from the watch last night."

That connected dots. "Thomas? Oh, I haven't seen him today. He must've-" She caught herself before she could start rambling and delay the man; aimed at him instead a demure smile. "Anyway. I'll see this done."

* * *

It took Sally almost twenty minutes, once she and the quartermaster parted company, to make it round the camp and down to the stables. Her supplies had been depleted somewhat on the journey, so the fact that she could only see a lone gentleman sat busily darning one of his shirts by the last open stall was relieving. He'd have the pick of the crop that remained, it appeared.

If she could reach him.

Between her and her goal prowled perhaps the tallest, proudest looking stallion she'd seen in all her days. Free of saddle, tack and reins the horse strolled here and there, reacquainting himself with his surrounds with much the same ease Sally imagined a general or a lord of some lofty manor might. All flicking ears, snuffling nose and frighteningly intelligent eyes, he fixed on her the moment she paused to give him the space so large an animal demanded and made something of a beeline for the basket; long used, during his visits here, to pilfering treats from the burly quartermaster who usually ferried this very container about.

This being the stallion's habit though meant less than nothing to Sally as he bore down on her. Her first instinct was to run, but she knew better. There was no outrunning a horse - never mind one this size - so she surrendered instead, sinking down uneasily as his great head delved into her basket and guiding it to the floor more gently than the he would've managed unaided. She was busy plucking what she could from within, talking crossly at her happily chewing accoster –

"No no _no no **no**_! I mean really! Couldn't you _wait_? Your poor master over there. He is your master, isn't he? They'll be nothing left for him if you slobber all over it! No one wants to eat apples that a horse has slobbered on!"

– when a second voice broke in on the scene.

" **GÄNGER**!" it bellowed.

Sally dropped the apple she'd just rescued and gawped at the horse as he rose, still chewing, and approached the man seated by the empty stall. She knew that name and the voice that spoke it; recalled it from the road and smiled brightly before she could stop herself when her gaze moved from the horse to his master. Here was the Hessian she'd feared dead, alive and well; the one with the sword and the creaking leathers, and a voice that could come off like canon fire when he raised it. A thousand questions begged to be asked – about the blood he'd left in his wake; where he'd gone; what he'd done there – but he spoke to her before she could to him.

"Zis horse" he said, standing as his steed approached and giving his flank a rub with both hands. He patted twice for emphasis, then gestured to the half-decimated bushel of hay that sat just inside the stall's door. Another pat followed, then words again, low and gruff. "Vud think he starve."

"...Sta- Oh!" Sally chortled softly, catching his sarcasm a wisp late. So distracted was she by his simply being here, she'd not paid much mind to his expression or his tone of voice. "Yes, you'd think so" she replied, sorting through her wares carefully to separate those that'd been Gängered from those that the stallion's master might like. She pondered that name as she worked, searching what German she had for its meaning and coming up short. Between carrots and apples, she grew brave and asked him.

"Was- Ahh...Was bedeutet das wort? Gänger?"

If her use of his mother tongue pleased him it didn't show. "Verstehst du Draufgänger?" he asked, glancing over only briefly; wondering if the word in its full form might jog her memory. When it did not, a soft "Nein" her answer, he translated. "Daredevil."

"Daredevil..." The repetition was thoughtful, the words after it brave again. "Does the name match his character, or yours?… _Sie sind_ ein Draufgänger?"

The man's brows rose over icy eyes, curious, and Sally watched as he departed his steed's immediate company to make his way over to her. An effort to stand at his approach lost her an apple from the clutch she'd saved in her apron, so she settled again with a little aggrieved huff and favoured him with a smile as he stooped to inspect what she'd collected. Close to him now she noted in passing that he had something of a wildness about him that she couldn't quite place. Long limbed and strong, he carried the faint scent of his mount and sun-warmed skin on him; leather too, likewise warmed through noon, though he wore cloth garments at present. He also smiled in millimetres and with closed lips, and carried daggers in places she didn't realise one could carry daggers. This last thing she learned as he moved off, an apple in hand, and seemed to produce one out of thin air with which to cut the fruit.

She was a hair's breadth from asking him how he'd done it – for to her it may as well have been witchcraft for all the sense it made - when _starving_ Gänger returned to snaffle another mouthful of not hay from the basket. His master didn't seem to mind his cheek this time, passing nary a comment as he selected a carrot from within and set to demolishing it as he had his hay bushel. Sally wondered as she watched him if it was his knocking her to the floor in his haste for treats that'd earned the censure the first time, less the stealing of those treats itself.

"I'll bet those're as much of a luxury for you as they are me" she mused to the stallion, earning one eye and one ear's worth of attention between mouthfuls. It would've meant nothing to him, but she couldn't help giving him a little grin before shuffling slowly round so she could close her apron, which she loosened and doffed, about her lap full of fruit to spare it from further horsey intrigue. The snuffle of disdain this action earned prompted softly chuckled words. "Oh no, don't talk like that. You've got your bushel over there, look." She aimed a little point towards the stable and Gänger-

Gänger did what she said he should, his regal head turning as she gestured.

The shock this seeming obedience gave Sally came out in a beaming smile and a breathed, " _No_..." – the thought that he may have somehow understood her earning a little shake of the head. "You're a beauty" she said, watching as he bent once more and partook of his ill-gotten gains. "A clever one, I'm sure. But I doubt you're tha-"

"Er ist ein deutsches Pferd" the stallion's master put in as he returned to his seat by the stall's door; amused and bewildered both by how his mount and their guest were carrying on. His Gänger was a warhorse, well versed in the rigors of battle and life on the road. Violence, he was used to. Strife, he was used to. Rare was the day though that he was faced by something so benign as a little village woman. He was surprised, frankly, that the hand she'd pointed with made it back to her lap un-nipped. "No Englisch. Nur Deutsch."

"Nur…I… _Ach so_ " Sally exclaimed, nodding slowly even as she had to **_wonder_** … It was one thing to talk along to an animal without a thought to it understanding what was said – as she had been. But to have it implied that the animal she was chatting to didn't understand her _because she wasn't speaking a language he understood_ … **Well**.

She could work with that.

With mirth in her voice, she paid Gänger a well-deserved compliment in words more familiar to him. "Sie sind ein schön mann, ja?" she said, her hands flying up to her mouth to hide a gasp and stifle _giggling_ when his ears pricked and his head rose so that he could look at her properly. As if, somehow, he **_had_** understood. A half-step closer and she received a little nudge from soft nose to elbow, and then he was turning and wandering back towards his master; still happily chewing away.

"…Nur Deutsch" Sally managed, watching him.

"Nur Deutsch" his master replied, nodding once before popping a slice of apple into his mouth and returning his attention to his work. The thick under-leathers shirt he favoured had been torn through by an unlucky soldier's sword, and while his guest was amusing enough and had more fresh fruit with her than he'd seen in days, frivolity had its limits. Thus absorbed he didn't much notice how the woman lingered a little longer than she strictly had to; ostensibly to pick through the remains in the basket for any remaining shareable fare.

Really though?

In her heart of hearts?

She was working herself up to ask him all the questions that she'd caught behind her teeth when he'd first spoken. Three carrots emerged from the basket, were wiped off with her sleeve and tucked into her folded apron. A fourth then, and she took in a readying breath, looked over at the seated man and the words…all lined up correctly - in German even - and ready to go…died. He sat so content, so busily working and engrossed, that she hadn't the heart to disturb him with her curiosity. Sally rose instead, her fruit filled apron gathered close, and brushed off her dress before taking her leave with three politely spoken words.

"Auf Wiedersehen Reiter."

She'd made it a handful of steps when he called out to her. "Bitte, dame" he said, pausing until she turned. "Ich habe eine Frage."

_I have a question._

"Ja? Welche Frage?"

_Yes? What question?_

"…Are _you_ a daredevil?"

There was a smirk she could detect in the words but not see on his face, and Sally…Sally went puce from the throat to the tips of her ears. He'd kept that question in his mind this whole time, it seemed – even translated it so he could ask it with the same inflection she had. If she had the power to will the ground to swallow her whole, she would have in that moment. She didn't though – couldn't magic holes in the earth like he could daggers from the air – and so was left to steadily pinken and splutter, words tripping over the embarrassment that prickled all over her skin.

"N- No" she managed, her words stuttering like the steps she took away did. "Ich bin Sally."

And with that she was off in a flurry of cataclysmically embarrassed skirts. As soon as she was out of the Reiter's eyeline her hand came up and hid her face; a groan escaping along with short breaths that were half laughter and half stifled panic at the thought of how foolish she'd been to speak as she had. A _blind man_ could've guessed that horseman was a mercenary, and what'd she said?

"Sie sind ein Draufgänger?" The derision in her tone was thick as mud. "What was I thinking!?"

She berated herself all the way back to the triage where Ms Taymar, taking a moment for herself on the balcony, happily accepted Sally's pinny full of apples and veg as the young woman marched by shaking her head. Through the front door she went then, booted feet stomping nosily towards the quarters she and Rose had slowly made more and more homey as the months passed. They'd managed, through barter with the ladies at the local farmstead, to acquire a pair of lovely blankets to help them through the winter, a pair of thick socks each, a rug to soften the wooden floor between their beds and the knowledge, thanks to a lovely older lady who gave her name only as Bess, of how to press flowers. To say they took the latter and ran with it would be as great an exercise in understatement as calling their dear Thomas short when compared to them both. Books, between whose pages nestled blooms collected over their months abroad, were found both stacked and open to display finished articles upon every spare surface in their quarters; as were small bushels of flowering herbs carefully tied together with string. Those smelt divine, and lent the space even more of a comforting feeling than did the pretty pressed blossoms. They reminded Rose of her auntie's practice back home, and Sally of country walks she'd been on as a girl with her father.

None of that comfort though gave her even a glancing blow as she pushed the door open, a plaintive " _Roooooooose_ " escaping as she did. The lady in question, who'd been penning her journal while settled on her bed, turned at the sound. Their eyes met, and Sally gathered her nerve.

"You'll never believe what I've gone and done."

* * *

Five minutes later Rose was still laughing. Sally was as well, mind, but she was as red as the apples the man by the stables had helped himself to; the very obviously martially competent man who she'd seen fit to ask –

"Are you a daredevil? Sally!" That was Rose, her glee easing into unladylike sniggers caught behind the fingers she'd raised to hide her mouth. "Whatever made you ask that?!"

"It's his horse's name!" Sally chortled back, rubbing her cheeks with both hands. She'd sunk to the floor beside Rose's legs while recounting the salient bits of her folly – that she'd come across a chap at the stables and managed to put her foot firmly in her mouth – but hadn't touched on who she'd realised that chap was yet. She felt she owed Rose the shock of good news after having her in stitches.

"Draufgänger. Which is longhand for Gänger." Sally peeped up at her friend, a little smile tugging at her lips. "Which was the name-"

"That the man on the road called his horse" Rose broke in, realisation taking her eyes wide and brows high. A flutter of fabric brought her eye-level with Sally, mirth foregone in favour of massive, massive curiosity. "What else did you find out?" she enthused. "His name? Where he went? Where that awful ooze he left-"

"Rose!" Sally laughed, open hands laid upon her excited ward-sister's arms. "The soul of uselessness, I only really learned his horse's name. The ooze couldn't have come from him or his steed though. They looked both to be in perfect health; no visible wounds and too much speed about them – especially that Gänger – for any to be hidden away."

A frown creased Rose's brow as understanding came. "He must've been carrying someone with him then" she said. "Someone he wasn't in a rush to get to camp with, since he stopped by us and was travelling at a languid pace."

Sally too lost what traces of mirth had been left about her. "You know, I'd bet you're right...A fallen comrade maybe? Returned too late, and now buried somewhere that's less likely to be desecrated by fighting?"

"Possibly" Rose mustered, her mind having wandered down less savoury imaginary paths. Perhaps it was the lingering vestiges of horror that'd been recounted to her by the men she'd shared her Bible with earlier, but she couldn't quite manage Sally's optimism. Something simply didn't…sit right. A solider in the king's army wouldn't have left the field of battle to try and save a wounded man unless he was someone of immensely high stature, and no news of such a person having recently been taken ill had made it to the camp. That and the fact the man was using the stables and not the cavalry's allotted quarters marked him as a mercenary, and she doubted those felt much in terms of comradeship with others of their ilk; not enough to want to go out of their way to bury one at least.

A touch upon her brow, Sally's fingers, snapped her from her ruminations. "You'll wrinkle, looking like that" she said, the corners of her eyes crinkling with the implication of a smile when Rose gently batted her away.

"It's the sun that does that" she clipped primly. "Not frowning." A pause then, and her worry slipped through in words. "You waltzing off with apples for strange horsemen is more likely to age me than frowning will. Just-" She raised a hand to stop Sally's brewing rebuke. "Do be careful. Please?...On our side or not, don't let yourself forget what he is."

A hush fell as Sally nodded her acquiescence. She wanted to remind her friend that living where they lived, doing what they did for a living, they met men just like the one with the horrendously greedy horse daily. Uniformed soldier or mercenary he was an ally, and while that didn't preclude him from causing them damage, Sally got no sense from him that he was interested enough in her comings and goings, let alone Rose's, to do any such thing. She wanted to tell her this, remind her of it, but knew Rose too well to think that she wouldn't argue back. They differed on this, and Sally respected that. She chose instead a little fun.

"I promise you" she said, "that the only thing I'll ever say to that chap beyond our usual fare will be this. His horse almost bowled me over for the apples I was carrying; the carrots. I'll only ever say this to him."

Rose leant forth slightly, hopeful that her concerns had sunk in; wanting of a return to levity.

"I'll say-" A giggle cut Sally short. "I'll say, Das ist nicht ein Pferd."

"That's not a horse?" Rose repeated, a grin threatening.

"Nein! Es ist ein Schwein!"

"It's a pig!"

Laughter bubbled up in both women, Rose's playfully scolding, "You can't say that to a horseman!" challenged by Sally's, "Would you like to watch me?!" as she made to rise and go for the door. A brief struggle ensued – arms about waists and hands about wrists and turning in circles – that ended with both women collapsed in a cackling heap upon the rug-covered floor. Neither Sally nor Rose fretted another moment about the camp's new arrivals then; be they resident in the triage or busily darning shirts by the stables. Their evening remained peaceful, as did the camp's surrounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Was bedeutet das wort? Gänger?" What does that word mean? Gänger?
> 
> "Verstehst du Draufgänger?" Do you understand Draufgänger/Daredevil?
> 
> "Nein" No
> 
> "Er ist ein deutsches Pferd" He is a German horse
> 
> "Nur Deutsch" Only German
> 
> "Nur…Ach so" Only…Oh, right/I see
> 
> "Sie sind ein schön mann, ja?" You're a handsome man, yes?
> 
> "Auf Wiedersehen Reiter." Goodbye, Horseman
> 
> "Bitte, dame." Please, lady; Please madam
> 
> "Ich bin Sally." I am Sally
> 
> A note from the author! Hello again friend :3 In case you were wondering, Sally didn't notice Gänger's master's teeth during their interaction. He was a good distance from her when he spoke about his dear steed starving and smiled, remember, only faintly and with a closed mouth when he was close to her. The penny will drop soon enough, worry not :3 For now, she's all innocence and apple cores :p


	7. Feuer

Abed now for several hours, Sally twitched herself wakeful; roused but only barely by a tickle near her nose, her cheek. This new, slight awareness brought her senses slowly back to her; the faint ringing of bells and raised voices in the distance that she could hear through the part-open window her cot was positioned beside. The tickle came again, like a feather shifting on her skin, and her fingers chased it, eyes opening as she pushed herself groggily upright in the dim. Her touch made the tickler crackle faintly, smearing like chalk dust where it'd kissed her as she wiped it away while fumbling to light a second candle from the long-burning wick of that which stood guard over the little table by her bed. In their soft orange glow, Sally stared at her fingertips.

"...Ash...?"

Pounding footfalls sounded beyond her quarters' door. A panicked wail followed -

" **SALLY**!?"

\- and then Rose was upon her before she had a moment to blink. They met briefly in the room's centre, a second's embrace released so Rose could slam shut the solitary window and lock it firmly. A faint layer of ashfall clung to the sill, and to the blanket Sally had been snoozing under.

From the hallway, Robin's voice thundered. " **HENRY**!? _**HENRY GET OUT HERE**_!" When Barmouth gave no answer his door was kicked in, Dr Hall's rapid search for the camp's ostensible head-man continuing as Sally caught hold of her ward-sister's arms; eyes wide, breaths short and choppy.

"What in God's name is happening?! _**Fire**_?!"

"Yes, but _**worse**_ " Rose rasped, panic sending her throat as tight as it did Sally's chest. "It was set by militiamen! We're _**found**_! They're attacking the camp!"

Dread dropping like stones in her belly, Sally gaped, tried for words and then -

" _ **Ladies**_!"

The nurses shrieked, spinning as one to face the ragged form of Dr Hall. His weight propped against his hands, he leant into their door's frame as he looked upon them. His full day's toil and frantic, failed search for Barmouth as battle was joined had wearied him; panicked him beyond description. The sight of their fear though, and his duty to protect the life of every man under this roof of theirs, cast his spine in iron.

"Come" Robin said, waving them to him; guiding them through what he needed of them. "Snuff the candles. Put on _boots_ , Sally. Come with me. The fighting-" He glanced both ways along the corridor before easing his charges out and towards the ward's door. "The fighting is localised - near where the fields the and camp meet. They've not breached us too far yet, and may not. Nothing is certain." He eased to a stop, the door of the steamy boiler room at his back. Slowly, he set a hand upon each woman's shoulder. "Nothing but the fact that every life in there-" The ward was indicated with an inclination of Robin's head. "Is under our care before God's." Each woman's gaze was caught, held as he spoke, his voice firm but gentling now; encouraging. "Breathe...do you hear me?"

"Yes sir" Rose said, her hand and Sally's tightly grasped between them.

Sally merely nodded, focusing on doing what she was told and praying she wouldn't keel over gasping despite her present lack of her once customary stay. Robin eyed her, but couldn't fault the fear she felt. It lapped at every part of him; drew his mind to possibilities of escape for his nurses and their patients should the worst happen; should the camp fall. None of these concerns though reached his voice.

"Steel yourselves...Ms Taymar and I are with you. As is the Almighty. Do you hear-" A gentle squeeze was given to Sally's shoulder. It drew her eyes to Robin's. "Do you hear me, Sally?"

Though her voice was tight and wispy, Sally answered him. "Yes sir."

Rose's eyes were the next he met. "Rose?"

Quaking but resolute, the woman nodded once. "What would you have us do?"

Robin let the pride he felt in them show through a small smile. He gestured to the ward, speaking as he made haste towards the triage's front door. He could hear Captain Brandt out there, and wanted to speak to him while he had the chance. "Ms Taymar needs you. The windows need locking; covering. The sheets on the balcony must be brought inside. They'll go up in flames if they're left and the fire spreads. Wet them. Soak them completely. They'll suppress fire and smoke for a time. Help douse it. See to the patients. Keep them calm if you can." He waved them off as he reached the corridor's corner. "Go!"

The nurses needed no more telling. Through the ward's door they went, into a scene of absolute chaos. Voices were raised left and right, the patients arguing amongst themselves about which of them were well enough to stand in defence of the building and those within. All bar two of those resident were roaring - that last pair too ill by miles to have a horse in this particular race - and Ms Taymar looked about ready to smother the lot of them when Rose returned, as she'd promised she would, with her ward-sister in tow. If anything, the sight of them made the shouting match _louder_.

"Schau sie an!" a Hessian bellowed, gesturing to them. "Sie sind so klein!"

" _ **Hilflos**_!" another barked, hauling himself up and onto his feet. To his credit he staggered only briefly, and didn't sag into Rose's arms when she hurried over to help him. "Du bist so nett zu uns" he said to her. "Ich werde dich schützen."

Despite the anxiety prickling her skin, Rose smothered a chuff and schooled her features into as close an approximation of polite acquiescence as she could manage. She recognised this man - Franz she recalled - as one of the small number she'd shared her Bible with the preceding afternoon, and hoped that acquaintance would make talking him down easier. "Du kannst kaum stehen" she said, glancing between the gallant man's struggling legs and his eyes; pleading with hers for him to see sense.

Franz puffed up indignantly, bracing himself as best he could. "Aber ich kann stehen" he countered, glancing round the room at his counterparts. "Wir können stehen."

"Ja!" a third man proffered, raising himself up and out of bed.

"As can I!" a fourth agreed, likewise standing.

Wringing her hands as the chorus grew, Rose caught and Ms Taymar's gaze across the distance between them and shared a look of fond (if frazzled) despair. Sally though, blissful at her counterpart's proficiency at distraction, made haste towards the balcony and the sheets swaying gently on their poles. It took three attempts, her courage quivering, to crack the door open far enough to appraise the area beyond, and a half minute of peering through the scant inch of space that effort made before she edged more than the toe of one of her now worn boots out into the open, ash stippled air. She could hear the roar of battle, too close; the awful crackle of gunfire as soldiers, barely roused from slumber, hurtled along the camp's main thoroughfare to join the fray. Wood smoke, the scent of scorched chaff and hay reached her, and a voice -

" _Zally_!"

Sally caught a yelp behind both hands, leaping back and edging forward in the space between heartbeats. "Thomas!" she rasped, scooting towards him; keeping low like the young man was where he perched at the far corner of the balcony. She pulled down a sheet as she approached him, trembling fingers finding a fold on his jacket and latching on. Her voice was an urgent whisper when next she spoke.

" _Komm herein_!"

Thomas shook his head. "Nein" he murmured, his focus shifting not an inch from the road. The barrel of his musket glinted faintly in the moonlight. He hoped Sally didn't notice how his grip on the weapon shook like hers upon his uniform. "No inside. _**You**_ inside. _**Go**_. Out is...not safe."

As if to prove him right, a push from the militiamen broke into the main thoroughfare's furthest reaches; battling warriors visible now to those that watched. Thomas adjusted his grip on his long-arm, peering along its barrel at them as Sally cowered behind him. She was frozen in place until quickening hooved steps sounding at the balcony's path-side edge caught her attention.

Astride his stallion, his sword at his hip, Captain Brandt surveyed the unfolding chaos. He reined his horse tightly when it surged in place, aching to run as keenly as Brandt ached to join his comrades. A hard tug right turned the steed in a half circle; brought the Captain round to face the scattering of men he'd been able to collect from around the camp's front entrance in the moments after the watchman - his spyglass revealing a dark mass of moving bodies rushing forth from the fields, flames licking up in their wake - had started ringing the alarm bell.

"Schützen Sie die Triage!" Brandt barked, gesturing first towards the building, then to a portion of the soldiers before him. They numbered ten, a rough third of the Home guard's total number, and carried a longarm like Thomas's each. The rest of the camp's denizens were either dispersed on manoeuvres in the surrounding countryside - it was to them he had sent his man Michael with orders to turn all he found about and bring them back to aid the camp - or hurtling down towards the fields to wage war. These though, the men at his side, would defend the triage to the last man. He'd sworn as much to Dr Hall not moments prior, and while remaining so relatively far back from the battle proper sat poorly with him, he was not the only man of rank among the forces presently inhabiting the camp. Those who were up against it, the remainder of his own corps included, were not there blind or alone.

"Infanteristen!" he bellowed, drawing his sword and gesturing with it to the area beside him. The movement riled his horse, made it sidestep but Brandt held him firm; made the movement seem purposeful; guided. "Bilden Sie hier eine Linie! Schaffen Sie eine Barriere - verwenden Sie Fässer, wenn Sie müssen; umgedrehte Tische; irgendetwas! **BLEIBEN HIER**! **DO NOT MOVE FROM THIS PLACE**! _**ALLES KLAR**_!?"

Every man he addressed, Thomas included, barked those last words back. Their volume dislodged petrified Sally from her spot behind her friend; sent her flying for the remaining sheets and back through the ward's door in a whirl of cloth and gasping. Robin, returned now to the fold after his word with the Captain and a quick stop in the stove room for two pails of water, bolted it closed behind her.

It was all they could do now to prepare and wait.

* * *

For the sixth time since Sally's hurried escape from the balcony, Ms Taymar turned the sandglass that lived upon her desk over to start its count anew. It measured time in quarter hours, give or take, and found its purpose in this moment both as a time keeper and a distraction from the slowly raising din outside the walls. The more she could get Sally and Rose doing between each glass-turn - checking their wards; making sure the sheets pressed at the bottoms of the windows and doors remained wet; even preparing a little tea for everyone and passing out extra rations to ward off hunger - the less time they had to dwell; to panic.

Not all within though were fighting such keen unease. Franz, his talkative countrymen and the lone Englishman-patient among the standing's number - a well-spoken chap named Charles but who went by Charlie - clamoured for the best view possible at two of the ward's scattering of road-facing windows. They relayed what they saw when they pushed back the curtains to the remaining patients, too weak to rise and look for themselves, and ignored point blank Robin's attempts at getting them to return to their beds.

We can stand, they reminded him, and want to for as long as God would let us.

Their scatter-shot narrative was not reassuring.

"Das Feuer kommt näher."

"There's no one left to man the wells. Of course it is. Es gibt niemanden mehr, der dagegen ankämpft, Franz."

"Schau da! Die Schatten! Sind sie Verbündete?"

Five sets of eyes scrutinised the blur of movement beyond the glass.

"Sie müssen sein. Keine Schüsse von unseren Jungs."

"I don't think Brandt has seen them yet. He might take them for enemies. Sollten wir ihn alarmieren?"

"Nein, es wird Aufmerksamkeit erregen!"

Waved off by newly antsy Franz, Charlie shuffled back a couple of steps and collided quite accidentally with Rose. Even busied by Ms Taymar, there was only so much one could do before the mind began churning anew. She wanted answers the matron and Dr Hall couldn't give her, so parlayed the Englishman's apology into a question.

"How many men are stationed here?"

"Accounting for losses in battle, I'd say perhaps one hundred and sixty" he replied, hobbling the few paces back to his bed with Rose and settling on its edge. The move was as much a tactic to get the woman away from the window as it was brought on by the need to sit and rest his legs.

"Where are they?" Her arms coming up to cross over her stomach, the nurse swayed lightly in place; shifting her weight from foot to foot anxiously. "With so many to hand, shouldn't this be over by now?"

Charlie considered his answer, wanting neither to lie to her nor cause alarm. The truth though, he found, risked the latter no matter how he sliced it. "Some are here still of course, defending the camp. Others, the bulk of our cavalry particularly, the English cavalry, patrol our surrounds; fending off attacks like this before they reach us. The Hessian cavalry do the same, though I don't know their routes as well as I might. Yet others are stationed at forward camps within a square mile of here; near the neighbouring township; near the road that leads up to here from the beach; and elsewhere. Our numbers…They are easily stretched thin."

A wave of anxious nausea coming over her, Rose pursed her lips tightly and forced in a shaky breath. "So these got through" she mustered, the statement obvious but helpful to her understanding of their predicament nonetheless. The seated man before her nodded once.

"In a gap between patrols, most likely" he said. "...I-"

A bellowed call from outside -

" **ZIELEN**!.. ... _ **FEUER**_!"

\- brought an explosion of movement from those lingering near the windows. Every man shifted himself clear as quickly his wounds would let him, the barely muffled crack of too close musket-fire making the glass they'd stood by rattle precariously in its moorings. At Dr Hall's insistence, all bar one made haste to his respective bed. The last made haste for his effects; for his sword in its scabbard and the bayonet once strapped at his hip. This man, Hall was on like lightning.

" **HERR MÜLLER**!" he snapped, not knowing him as Franz, like Rose did. He strode up at his back, mind brimming with thoughts of chastisement and peaceful disarmament, only to pull up short when the man's aft disappeared in a half-turn and he faced glaring green eyes along the length of a steel, double-edged blade.

The noise that'd rippled round the triage at the musket-fire ended in a unified sucking in of breath and twin strangled shrieks from the nurses who, in the panic, reunited by Charlie in a clamour of grasping hands and aborted attempts for distance from anything even resembling the ward. They couldn't leave, _wouldn't_ leave, but that didn't for a moment mean they didn't _want_ to.

At peril's edge, Robin mustered the same restraint of reflexive flight. "Dies ist nicht die Zeit für Gewalt" he said, easing a half-step back to give the obviously irate man before him space to breathe. In that space, Franz spoke for every able man around him.

"Ich werde hier nicht ohne Kampf sterben" he spat, gesturing then with his free hand to his comrades in arms, battered and broken as they were; as he was. "Ich werde sie nicht ohne Kampf sterben lassen." And then, his blade lowering slowly but still point-out towards the doctor, he gestured to him. "Und ich werde dich nicht ohne Kampf sterben lassen."

Half way across the room, seated Charlie began to relax. "I will not lay here and die without a fight" he murmured, Franz's volume letting him hear him clearly. He glanced at the nurses as they drew nearer to him, coaxed from their huddle by the want to listen in. "That's what he's saying. I will not lay here and die without a fight. I will not let them - us - die without a fight. And I will not let you die without one either." Moved despite their circumstances, as a chorus of support rose up through the triage for Franz's declaration of what he saw as his duty as a soldier, Charlie felt himself smile. "I don't know him" he said, meeting the two pairs of nervous eyes that were fixed on him. "But I'm with him, nonetheless."

Sally, choked by fear, went slack jawed briefly at the sound of him. "You can't go out there!" she pled, sinking down in supplication by the man's nearest knee. Kindly eyes, like Robin's but leagues less familiar and comforting, gazed down upon her.

"I know that" he replied. "As do we all. But nor can _they_ , out _there_ , come in here and expect no resistance. _Wir können stehen,_ madam. We can stand. And we will, in defence of this place."

* * *

As _they_ out _there_ edged ever closer to the fore of the camp, Captain Brandt and his corps - trapped behind their makeshift bridgehead by the protective oath he had sworn to Dr Hall – could only watch and provide covering fire as the militia's incursion was met with everything the camp's collective forces had in them. At a rough guess Brandt would give the enemy seventy souls, while the camp had fifty at present and the high ground. It was an uneven playing field, no question, but hope remained on two fronts. The prevailing wind had begun to force the flames away from the camp-proper, sparing all but the outermost buildings the fate that'd befallen the poor wheat fields. And here and there, hurtling past him at speeds uncountable, were small pockets of soldiers who had been released from their forward camp positions to bolster the defence of the camp. Though not a man to pray often, Brandt reached out to whatever God might be listening and begged for protection enough to see them through until Michael's return with what he hoped to be a cavalry charge. He prowled back and forth at the rear of the defensive line he'd ordered his men to form eight turns of Ms Taymar's sandglass back now, his mount as restless as he for a positive change in the turmoil boiling away at the end of the thoroughfare leading through the camp's middle. Any charge made along that road would lead the militia straight towards them.

"Beeil dich, Michael" Brandt murmured, words that Thomas, upon his balcony-perch, part mimicked without having heard him.

"Beeil dich-"

Suddenly, a burst of musket fire blasted over the young man's hide. He threw himself down and back with a yelp, his weapon clutched across his chest as his Captain roared out the order for a retaliatory assault - the infantry line bowing slightly to give them a better angle on their assailants. An explosion of gunfire followed, but for Thomas the world's din had faded into nothing but a piercing ringing in his ears. He heaved himself back yet further - his shoulders striking the triage's door with such force that those within sought to barricade it against a perceived attack - and fumbled both to reload his musket and to speak the words he felt he must.

"Beeil d-.. ..Be-"

A ragged, desperate breath was dragged in and forced out; frustration and panic making his movements forceful despite how his fingers shook. Pressing himself back further against the door, his head arched up and mouth open to gulp in air, Thomas tried again -

"Beeil dich, **REITER**!"

\- and with that bellowed final word it was begun. A coolness struck through the air, though the world still felt like it burned around him; a coolness that brought courage as much as it did fear in the young Hessian. He'd never known how much stock to place in the more outlandish parts of die Geschichte des Reiters. Those elements he had shared with Sally and Rose were the least so, the least bizarre, but they were not the sum by any means. It was to one such unshared part that Thomas reached now; the incantation his fellows swore called der Reiter to the aid of his Hessian brethren in times of great peril. That they'd warned him not to use it – that doing so would endanger his head, for der Reiter was not commanded lightly – mattered for nothing in the face of the peril bearing down on him and his brothers in arms in the instant moment. His fellows were being slaughtered. The new, sticky wetness seeping down his torso was likely his end. It was all he could to do force his hands to cooperate - to find and tear open a fresh cartridge for his musket, to half cock the weapon, to pour a dusting of black powder into its pan - and continue on, his voice thin as paper.

"Höre mich. Aufgehen! Noch eine Nacht der Enthauptung! Höre uns, Reiter! Deine Brüder brauchen dich!"

Beyond the struggling young man, Brandt's eye was drawn to signs of a new commotion beyond his infantry line. The militiamen that'd once been pushing forward in waves - like a battering ram aimed at breaching the camp's very centre - seemed to lose coordination and rush forth in one big push. Through his spyglass they looked the be frenzied; panicked.

Oblivious to the sudden shift, Thomas wobbled up onto one knee. "Erhebe dich mit deinem Schwert!" he rasped, sweat stinging his eyes as he fought to ready his musket. The fog that clung to the edges of his mind was encroaching, making coordination difficult, but he fought on; messily decanting the remaining powder, a lead ball, and the cartridge paper into the gun's muzzle. "Nimm die Köpfe unserer Feinde! _**Aufgehen**_!"

The commotion at the end of the camp exploded at Thomas' thready plea, a victorious bellow from Captain Brandt signalling hope's return; Michael and a force of twenty brought from far afield to turn the tide. Mounted all, the cavaliers burst through a gap in the flames heretofore unseen by the corps beside the triage. And with them, he to whom Thomas had so ardently called.

Sword high, his war cry a roar of rage and hunger, the Horseman flew through the camp's main entrance and past Brandt's line so quickly that he and his men barely had time to register his coming. He descended upon the now cornered opposing force with all the ferocity of a hurricane, singling out any who had split far enough from their fellows to be dispatched by a single powerful swipe. One fell to his blade, then another, and another, and then a fourth; caught square in the open, his musket raised and firing what should've been a kill shot-

It sailed wide.

_Impossibly_ it sailed wide as horse and rider bore down on their attacker at great speed. Horror made the musketeer's eyes bulge as he fought to ready another shot; too late. The stallion advanced towards him side on, the position almost taunting him to try a second time. And astride the snorting, snarling beast, a vision of death bedecked in black armour – soaked to the knees in the blood of his enemies; dagger-mouthed, blade aloft, and _smiling_ as he stalked him.

Panic took hold in an instant. Abandoning his musket – its weight a burden when flight was all its owner lived for – the soldier took off running along the roughly cobbled pathway that led towards the front of the camp. He made it within clear sight of Brandt's infantry line before his pursuer grew bored of him; his hands-up plea for mercy cut off mid-word by a hatchet hurled with skill and force enough to bury it to the poll in the back of his head.

Behind their bridgehead, the Home guardsmen shifted where they knelt; parting their line enough that any shots they took while the terror on horseback was so close to them would miss him. They, like Thomas on his balcony, knew him by sight. A couple even bit back cheers of relief as he neared them, preferring to nudge each other with knees and elbows and mouth silent whoops of joy rather than risk their necks by drawing the wrath that oozed from his every pore onto them.

Despite their caution though, they weren't pinned to the air like Thomas was by the brief glance round the Horseman took before dismounting to collect his weapon. They weren't because, unlike their comrade, they thought nothing of the possibility of living to owe the man a debt for his presence - much as the superstitious among them would come to wonder who did. That burden was Thomas's, and it only redoubled when the young man's fingers, quickly set to seeking wounds beneath his uniform, came back without even the implication of blood upon them.

* * *

Two further turns of Ms Taymar's sand-glass would pass before the battle's final ebbs and flows played out in the camp's low reaches. With the enemy vanquished – those cowards who thought to abandon the field chased down and returned to face whatever justice might await them come the morn – what remained of the force that brave, exhausted Michael returned with beat the fire that had so damaged the southern end of the camp to death with pails of water, shovels of dirt, wet rags tied about their faces and a hundredweight of elbow-grease. The Horseman, for his part, seemed to have vanished.

With victory's declaration Captain Brandt loosed his men to give aid where it was needed, vowing privately never again to swear himself so completely to as cloistered a position as the one Dr Hall's entreaty resulted in. He would put thought into a different stratagem for defending the triage should the camp be breached again. He would even consult Hall on it. But more than that he could not promise. More than that he could not do.

Movement on the triage's balcony drew him from his contemplations – the sight of Thomas, looking deathly but alive, being dragged inside by the same pair of nurses who had set him unknowingly on a trail most ghastly. In hope for the young man's survival and the ladies' continued ignorance he again reached out to God, and found it in himself, when they were replaced on the balcony by a familiar face, to let relief relax his posture incrementally.

"Müller!" he greeted, weathering the scowl the man shot his way with an attempt at good humour. "Du lebst!"

"Diese Bastarde tötete meine Männer" Franz growled, effort more than anger making his words short; clipped. Once he'd propped himself up against the balcony's railing, he reached out as Brandt approached him and shook the man's hand. They had met when the good Captain and his corps led what little was left of Franz's platoon in from the wilds barely a day back, and had found in their brief acquaintance that they were cut from very similar cloth. "Ich muss leben. Ich möchte sie sterben sehen."

As the Captain and his acquaintance broke bread over the railing, noting between themselves that the sky was beginning to lighten with morning's earliest showing, Sally and Rose worked in vain to get sense out of Thomas. There were no visible wounds on the man bar cuts and scrapes, but he spoke nothing of sense and was fading from consciousness swiftly. What words they caught before he succumbed –

"Der Reiter...war…h-…Ich s- sah ihn."

\- sounded very much like, _The Horseman was here_. _I saw him_.

An odd mixture of fear, awe and shock laced the utterance. Neither Sally nor Rose was at all certain whether it was meant as a comfort, or as a warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Schau sie an! Sie sind so klein!" Look at them! They are so small!
> 
> "Hilflos!" Helpless!
> 
> "Du bist so nett zu uns. Ich werde dich schützen." You are so kind to us. I'll protect you.
> 
> "Du kannst kaum stehen." You can hardly stand
> 
> "Aber ich kann können stehen." But I can stand. We can stand
> 
> "Ja!" Yes!
> 
> "Schützen Sie die Triage!" Protect the triage!
> 
> "Infanteristen! Bilden Sie hier eine Linie! Schaffen Sie eine Barriere - verwenden Sie Fässer, wenn Sie müssen; umgedrehte Tische; irgendetwas! BLEIBEN HIER! ALLES KLAR!?" Infantrymen! Make a line here! Create a barrier - use barrels if you have to; upturned tables; anything! STAY HERE! ALL CLEAR!?
> 
> "Das Feuer kommt näher." The fire is approaching
> 
> "Es gibt niemanden mehr, der dagegen ankämpft, Franz." There is no one left to fight it, Franz
> 
> "Schau da! Die Schatten! Sind sie Verbündete?" Look there! The shadows! Are they allies?
> 
> "Sie müssen sein. Keine Schüsse von unseren Jungs." They must be. No shots from our boys.
> 
> "Sollten wir ihn alarmieren?" Should we alert him?
> 
> "Nein, es wird Aufmerksamkeit erregen!" No, it will attract attention!
> 
> "ZIELEN!.. ...FEUER!" AIM!… …FIRE!
> 
> "Beeil dich, Michael" Hurry up, Michael
> 
> "Beeil dich, REITER! Höre mich. Aufgehen! Noch eine Nacht der Enthauptung! Höre uns, Reiter! Deine Brüder brauchen dich! Erhebe dich mit deinem Schwert! Nimm die Köpfe unserer Feinde! Aufgehen!" Hurry up, HORSEMAN! Listen to me. Rise up! Another night of beheading! Listen, Horseman! Your brothers need you! Rise up with your sword! Take the heads of our enemies! Rise up!
> 
> "Du lebst!" You're alive!
> 
> "Diese Bastarde tötete meine Männer. Ich muss leben. Ich möchte sie sterben sehen." These bastards killed my men. I must live. I want to see them die.


	8. A Conspiracy? Here?

With dawn's arrival, milky light spilled over the camp on the hill; the natural haze of so early an hour exacerbated by the ash in the air. Clouds of the stuff boiled up in the charred remains of the wheat field, disturbed by and coating a passing pair of hunters - Gänger and his master who, for an hour now, had crisscrossed their ruined surrounds in search of the last of the scourge that had put flame to their preferred bastion. A rag tied about his face below the eyes, the Horseman held a longsword aloft and angled downwards across his body like a fisherman might a spear, ready to lunge down and skewer any felled but living Feinde he came across. He'd taken five that way so far, and the heads of two others – men of rank, both, if the cockades they'd worn on their hats had been anything to go by – variously filled his saddlebag and were tied into its strings. For that pair, and any more of their kind he found, he had a grander purpose. For their former comrades though –

Movement amidst the dunning ash drew the eye of both horse and master, Gänger's dancing steps half uncovering a wilted but breathing form. He looked for a moment to be attempting to stand, but a leg and an arm gave out and tipped him onto his back – a position that afforded him enough sight of his executioner for what would've been a scream to belch forth had his lungs not been so clogged and damaged by muck and smoke. The full body spasm that ejected this cough-gurgle-wheeze of horror died off as Hessian steel split him at the neck – his head left where it lay when a glance over his clothing marked him as a lowly drone at the disposal of higher masters.

Had the Horseman more empathy about him he might've paused on the relative youth in fallen one's face; might've seen in him a reflection of people closer to him; more known to and connected to him. As it was, he pulled his sword free and continued his hunt.

Sentiment had no place in war.

Across the camp and heedless of the horrors being visited in the field, the denizens of the triage found themselves possessed of extra hands. The camp's English Captain – one Arnold Phillips – had sent word of the attack to the forward encampments the moment he'd had a man to spare, and from them he had been gifted two nurses and a contingent of soldiers. Much as it was only a short-term kindness – for those spare souls were needed back at their home camps before long – it lifted many a spirit among those for whom the triage was home, and allowed Sally and Rose a small reprieve from their all-night-and-early-morning-long duties.

While they had returned to their quarters with little urging though, Sally couldn't keep from her mind how her ward-sister had lingered by dear fallen Thomas worriedly, and how she'd stroked a lock of tousled hair off his brow when Dr Hall had turned his back. The moment took her back to their months ago jollies aboard the Frigate that had delivered them to these shores; to her quip about Rose wanting to find herself a strapping Hessian husband, and to her friend's blushing laughter at the thought. She hadn't been at all serious then, and wondered if it was just tiredness now that made what could've easily been a friendly gesture seem somehow… _intimate_.

"Sally?"

Jolted from her thoughts by Rose's voice, Sally twitched into life as her friend approached and managed a vaguely bewildered but honest smile. "Sorry" she said, a hand coming up to touch her brow. "I'm…not sure where I went just then."

Rose's regard was knowing and fond. "You've been awake too long" she said, giving Sally a gentle push towards her catastrophically rumpled bed. The fine dusting of ash that'd accumulated before their rush to the ward was all but dispersed now, not a wisp of it coiling up into the air when the exhausted Schwester plopped down upon her blankets. Blearily she knuckled at her eyes, a huff of muted laughter escaping at Rose's, "Take your _boots_ off, Sally."

Defiant Sally though was having none of that. She limpened entirely in protest and collapsed into her bedding, Rose's faux exasperation at her antics countered with a correction. " _We_ have been awake too long…" she said, stretching out a foot towards her sister-nurse in jest. "And really Rose I-"

"I can see your petticoat" Rose interrupted, giggling as she pointed at the slip of flowery cotton peaking out from beneath the other woman's dress.

Sally gasped, her train of thought derailed. "The _scandal_!" she hushed, rolling onto her side so she could prop herself up on her elbow and see the offending thing properly. Her nose wrinkled slightly as she glared at it, an attempt to give it what-for coming through stifled laughter. " _Pretender"_ she scolded. _"_ You are _not_ outerwear _._ Begone!" A practiced fluff saw the patterned garment eaten up by her much more reserved work attire - muted blues banishing the riot of soft whites, creams, pinks and greens. Her victory complete, Sally grinned at Rose. "Perfect" she said.

"Quite so!" Rose smiled. "Except-" A point indicated her friend's feet. "You've got your boots on your bed now, darling."

An indignant squawk and a flurry of movement later, Sally was attacking her laces with all the coordination left in her tired fingers. Rose settled upon her cot across from her, watching her ructions with great amusement. She wondered if the dear woman would notice that she'd talked her into removing her boots before bed, or if want of sleep would steal away that notion.

* * *

Beyond the frivolities unfolding in the nurses' quarters, the triage bustled busily. Along with the pair of new faces brought in from neighbouring camps, the staff also took receipt of a shipment of supplies from the Navy Board back home that, thanks to the near constant stream of new patients over the past couple of days, was sorely needed. What was not brought though was any word on the whereabouts of the triage's ostensible benefactor - Mr Barmouth. Neither hide nor hair of the man had been seen, Robin and Ms Taymar calculated, for a day's worth of hours now; a fact that elicited in equal parts suspicion and concern. Could he have trekked out to the village prior to the battle, they wondered? Got caught up on the way? Had he been captured and were they, those who ran the triage in his stead, to be subject to ransom demands for his return?

"It's the not knowing that's killing me" Ms Taymar mused quietly as she assisted Dr Hall with cataloguing their new wares. They were sequestered by the cupboards that lined the wall beside the Oberschwester's writing desk and her bed, and could spare a little gossip between them now that the ward was in their newest arrivals' capable hands. "What will become of us here if the silly goat's been taken?"

"We will suffer many less headaches I'd wager" Robin quipped mirthlessly as he worked on restocking his tincture shelf. The open packet at his side, one of three, was sparse enough that, had he not known better, he would've harboured concerns that much of the delivery had been lost on its way to them. A frown crinkled his brow as he turned to look at Ms Taymar. "I've half a mind to go through Henry's ledger and look up our requisitions lists. The Board has questions to answer if this is all we're being sent."

"Oh _Robin_ " the matron chuffed, long used by now to Hall's grumbling about how Barmouth, and by extension the Navy Board, ran the triage. "It can't be that bad, surely."

"I mean it Anne." Hall gestured to the packet at his knee, pulling its edges apart so his counterpart could see it in its threadbare entirety. "We're not so far into the conflict that we're stretching the home stock thin. This is suffering beyond suffering. Where is it all _going_?"

Considering her friend's words, Ms Taymar scooped her skirt neatly about her knees as she knelt beside him and looked through the packet with a discerning eye. "Goodness" she murmured, rifling through its contents carefully. "No new bandages. No splints. One, two, three…Is that four crooked needles?"

"Yes" Robin said. "Four crooked and one small pack of straight, stitching needles."

"Nothing for Dysentery. Nothing for Mortification-"

"There are" Hall put in, counting off certain of the vials he had already placed within the cupboard. "Two vials of Camphor to add to the three we had in stock already."

Ms Taymar was not soothed. "We can at least ease pain then" she said, her inventory continuing. She had known as well as Robin how short their stocks were getting, but this? This being the sum of the medical replenishments for their large and busy camp brought the beginnings of real dread in her belly. "Four spools of thread, and…that's all." Shaking her head, the matron looked around. "Where are the other- Ah!" A moment saw her rescue the two remaining packets from where they'd been sat in haste atop her desk. Each was opened with care, its contents studied with increasing disbelief. Robin, for his part, simply looked at her; waiting for her assessment.

It wasn't long in coming.

"How short this is…" Anne exclaimed. "How **_short_**! Where is the Lactuca? The Opium? The Jalap? These common things- How can we be short of such _**common things**_?" Indignation quickening her, she cast a concerned look across the ward. While settled now, it took near nothing for an infection to develop or a stomach to turn. With so many men in so small a space and with so little by way of supplies, it would only be a matter of time before something horrendous cropped up.

Fretting, she turned to Robin. "That note you thought to send to the Navy Board…I'll sign it, when it goes."

"For what little good it might do us" the doctor replied kindly. "Thank you." He stood from his labours by the cupboard and joined Ms Taymar in looking through the remaining supply boxes; taking a little time to piece together what they _did_ contain. They counted bandages, a tourniquet, further spools of thread, further needles – crooked and straight. Also counted were a pair of bullet forceps and a number of pins, but for much else they were left wanting.

"There are no tinctures in here" Anne grieved. "And no salves. Little of-" A notion struck mid-sentence and stopped her cold. She blinked, then met concerned Robin's eyes. "Little of _saleable_ value. Little that would bring a monetary return. Healthful benefits, yes, but needles and bandages are ten a penny; easy to make if necessary – Heaven forbid. But tinctures? Opium? Liquid _Laudanum_ even? It's our stock of _those_ that's depleted. You don't suppose-"

The gravity of what she thought to suggest caught Ms Taymar's words before she could speak them. It could be a dangerous thing for a woman, even one of her relatively elevated stature, to query the status quo; to start _asking questions,_ especially where proof of anything that needed questioning at all was at a premium. Such was a preoccupation usually left to menfolk. Robin though, kindly, forward-thinking Robin who understood what she'd _not_ said, took that concern from her shoulders.

"You don't suppose" he asked, suspicion darkening his mien. "That someone might be spiriting it away to sell?"

Hearing the words said made Anne's breath catch. She drew closer to Hall, lowering her voice a hint in her urgency. "I pray you don't think me a gossip" she pled, comforted by how Robin shook his head at the very thought. "But the coin you could earn _doing that_ would be-"

"Much...much more than a nurse's or a soldier's meagre wage" the doctor finished gravely. Straightening where he stood, Robin looked out over the ward with new eyes, searching the place and wracking his memory for any soldiers, hands or other persons who had come and gone more frequently than most. A thought then, and he was moving. Double quick he struck out into and returned from the operating theatre, his provisions book retrieved and opened out onto the pages where he'd catalogued last month's stock; it's comings and goings; replenishments and depletions.

"Look here" he said, indicating the lines that concerned the more valuable items within their inventory – the Opiums and Laudanums, less the needles and thread. "This should help us make sense of things. Four vials of Opium solution were delivered last month. Three of Laudanum. That previous-" The page was turned, the month prior now shown. "Five of Opium. No Laudanum. That previous-" Another page turn. "Seven and two; seven of Opium, two of Laudanum. And yet further-" Six months disappeared between flicked pages. "Twelve vials of Opium, and **_that_**." He tapped the page. "That was our last sight of a full shipment of Laudanum. Eight vials-worth."

Fixed on the lines of figures, Anne took a slow breath. "Is that theft?" she asked. "Or wobbles in the supply-chain? Problems on the roads?"

"None have been reported" Hall replied. "At least not to my knowledge. No thefts. No bandits. No caravans being sacked. I ask Captain Brandt routinely. _Da sind keine_ he tells me, every time."

"There are none" the Ober repeated, circling the date of their last proper shipment - the last that was near-on as fulsome as they had been when first the camp was established - with her forefinger. Frowning, she met Hall's gaze. "Do you suspect anyone? Not our girls, surely. If it **_is_ **theft, it began before they arrived."

Despite himself Robin gave a soft, fond huff. His colleague's protectiveness of Sally and Rose was heartening. "I don't _want_ to suspect anyone" he said. "Least of all them. But it'd be remiss not to at least keep them in mind until we're certain."

"Certain?"

"That there is no thief."

Though Anne nodded, she was discontent. Like Robin she had no want to countenance the presence of a snake in their midst, and even less did she want to believe that her nurses could be part of anything so foul as the theft of medical wares from the very bosom of a _hospital_. There were a thousand more likely persons than they, but the thought of naming even one as a potential suspect left her wanting. Their thief, if there _was_ one, was a ghost in the dark. They simply couldn't leave him unchallenged.

"Where do we start?"

Hall's dour turn eased at the question. "Henry's ledger" he said, this first step of theirs - for in asking Anne had made herself a part of this venture - already set in his mind. "If I can find the triage's requisitions list, we'll be better able to see if it's shortages or theft that's at work here."

With little more than a nod then, he was striding out the ward's door and down the hall to Barmouth's office.

The game, Ms Taymar thought, watching him, was on.

* * *

When next Sally and Rose were seen on the ward and ready for work, a solid three hours had passed. They found their superiors at Ms Taymar's desk looking both distinctly discontent and purposeful, and were rushed off out into the world with a task neither had foreseen but both appreciated. The ward being flush with staff as it was, it was the job of the resident nurses to venture down into the lower reaches of the camp to provide aid, and perhaps more importantly clean drinking water, to the men who were busily toiling in the hope of salvaging what they could of the buildings and areas that had been taken by the fire. It would be easier for them to do that, Anne reasoned, than any of their most welcome visitors because Sally and Rose knew the camp upside down and backwards. They could therefore navigate and render whatever aid was needed more quickly than their unfamiliar counterparts could, and would be recognised more easily by the weary to boot.

That the Ober sought to explain herself when she didn't truly have to passed the ward-sisters by as they collected their belt-pouches of poultices and tinctures, their cloths, bandages, water-skins, drinking steins and lidded pails of cool, clean water from the stove-room and went off on their way. They weren't to know that she and Robin - his search of Barmouth's office yielding nothing but dust - hoped to have a precautionary peek around their private quarters in their absence; just to make double, triple sure that what they worried was happening really _didn't_ involve their nurses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small note about medicinal compounds from the 1770's - it should go without saying darlings but PLEASE DO NOT USE THESE EVER FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER WITHOUT THE DIRECTION OF A MEDICAL DOCTOR! I'M SO VERY SERIOUS! Medicine has moved on SO FAR since this formative, lovely but hellish-dangerous period in history.
> 
> Lactuca - Derived from the wild lettuce and used as a mild analgesic
> 
> Opium - A not at all mild analgesic
> 
> Jalap - Used (amongst other things) as a purgative, usually to rid a patient of intestinal/stomach problems
> 
> Laudanum - Another not at all mild analgesic
> 
> Camphor - Yet another analgesic
> 
> And a note on conditions:-
> 
> Mortification - Gangrene
> 
> And a final note for translations:-
> 
> Feinde - Enemies
> 
> Schwester - Nurse
> 
> Oberschwester (or Ober for short) - The head nurse or matron; our dear Ms Taymar herself


	9. Aftermath

"Had I slept the night through, unknowing" Rose murmured, looking around her as she and Sally alighted the triage's balcony and made their way onto the camp's main thoroughfare. "I'd have been readier to believe that the war had suddenly ended than to accept what truly happened here." Shaking her head, she turned in a circle and gave a disbelieving huff. "I mean just _**look**_ at it."

Sally did. All around them battle's insidious touch lingered. It was in the air, the lingering scent of a fire spent hanging heavy in the fog that'd rolled in as morning came; in the blackened swaths scorched onto once pristine buildings; in the ruin of the tent-village in the yard of the Hessian barracks, and the nervous energy of the soldiers and cavalrymen who roamed through the camp on guard, posting sentry, or gathering up the dead. It was in Captain Brandt who they passed on their travels; in the busy scratch of his quill on parchment as he hurried to catalogue his losses; in the adrenaline-fuelled determination that forced even the exhausted into action on this least wanted of mornings.

It was everywhere.

And it was _**loathed**_.

"This just doesn't seem real."

"I wish it weren't" Sally mourned, crossing the path with Rose at her hip. They spent a few moments at the fence they found there, squinting through the dim for signs of life among the scattered tents that filled the yard beyond, but saw none and quickly made for the camp's lower reaches. The scene there though looked only more grim. Dead men, enemies and otherwise, were being moved off as quickly as there were free hands to shift them. Lumps of charred wood that'd come free from the buildings closest to the fire lay where they'd fallen; yet more threatening to come crashing down moment by moment upon the heads of those who passed by unwarily. The air was even thicker here, the ash seeming to collect around the well as though it was its want to choke it, and as to the stable block-

Oh it was in dire, _**dire**_ straits.

The sight quickened Sally beyond description. She crossed the cobbled expanse that separated the stables from the road in a blink, her pail forsaken in the rush to reach the carcass of the once well used, well loved structure; to peer between its proverbial ribs in the hope of finding _**nothing**_. A call from Rose - on her heels but slowing, drawn away elsewhere by ragged coughing - went unheeded as she searched; the scent of what remained of a single horse, its body twisted by the agonies death by fire causes, catching Sally in the gut when she neared it. Unbidden, her mind went to Gänger - the lordly stallion the last steed she'd seen here - and she prayed that thought was wrong as she flitted to and fro, clearing the remaining stalls.

"One…two…three…four…five…" she counted. "And the sixth is the last; double-wide because it was for mothers and foals. Room for seven horses, but it's clear…It's clear except for-"

"Sally!" Rose tried again, and then again with an entreaty. "Sally, _help me_ here!"

And _**that**_ – that caught her ward-sister's attention.

Whipping round to face Rose, Sally's heart _sank_. Her counterpart was knelt by a man so caked in ash and muck that, like the soldiers who'd wandered by him as they worked, she'd have mistaken him for dead or debris at first glance. He was pressed up tight against the outer wall of the ruined stable's farthest reaches, and Sally braced herself, through the seconds it took to gather up her pail and get close enough to really look at him, for the unhappy revelation that she somehow knew him. After a moment's pause though – after kneeling by him and washing the grime from his face and hands while Rose sought out his injuries – something of relief prickled up over her skin. Looking at her blankly were not the eyes of any man she'd come to know even in passing during her time at the camp. Those she faced now were muddy brown and exhausted; shot through with pain from the leg wound Rose was fighting to uncover. Two pairs of hands, a small cutting blade and a tug later, both nurses held firm against wincing at the sight.

"This will need packing" Rose assessed, digging through her belt-pouch for a vial of Camphor to coat her fingertips – an effort to both clean them and to pass on through touch the soothing effects of the tincture. That done, she handed the small glass vessel over to Sally and went about examining the wound's edges; speaking to the soldier as she did. "You will be well, Sir" she reassured, glancing between the ragged one's face and his battered leg. "Needs nought but a stitch, I'd wager. We'll set you right."

Though he barely winced for all her fussing, a poor sign in Rose's book, the man seemed to nod as she spoke to him; the effort earning him an encouraging smile from the attentive Schwesters watching over him.

"That's the way" Sally murmured kindly, rubbing the contents of the Camphor vial into a strip of clean bandage while Rose worked on examining and cleaning the wound. They shared Rose's waterskin to keep blood and ash from their pails, and traded duties between them with practiced confidence when it came time to slip the Camphor-laced material into the wound; Sally dabbing fresh blood away while Rose pressed the slender, soaking bandage where it was most needed. Their patient hissed this time, tensed all over and cursed but they were neither budged nor bothered by the outburst. Both women had weathered much worse over their time in the triage, and soon found themselves possessed of a sore and grumpy but slightly more enlivened patient, who even rasped out a "Th'k yuh" when Rose prepared and helped him drink from a stein of water in an effort to soothe his throat.

"You're very welcome" she smiled, looking to Sally then. "If we could try and move him to the tri-"

She got no further. The soldier jolted where he sat, a fearful " _No_!" coughed out as he fought the fatigue in his limbs and pressed into the wall at his back in an attempt at sitting up straighter; at putting on airs of being less in need of hospital care than he really was. He managed the words, " _Death house_ " before his throat seemed to give in again, both Sally and Rose left pained but sadly unsurprised by the description. For many a man as gravely wounded as this one, the triage was where they would die – be it through blood loss or opportunistic infections or anything in-between – and while those ends were made as peaceful as possible, they were never welcome; never unfought.

"Peace, Sir" Rose soothed, her hands palm-out and empty; in no way to be misread as an attempt to grab or cajole. "We won't force you there. It would simply be more comfortable for y-"

" _ **No**_ " the man snapped.

"…Very well." Resigned, Rose again turned to Sally. "Darling" she said. "I'm going to see what I can do for this gentleman _here_." She glanced at the distrustful man, ensuring that he understood her. "If he'll let me, I'll bind his leg and see about getting him on his feet after a little rest."

Following her ward-sister's train of thought, Sally nodded. "You'd have me continue the rounds, yes?"

"Yes" Rose replied. "These wounds aren't _so_ grave that I need another pair of hands to see to them; they're deep but slender – an easy stitch, provided he let me at them with needles."

Their patient grumped at the idea blearily.

Rose and Sally shared an exasperated look.

"I shan't go too far" Sally said, nodding out towards the cobbled road beyond the well. "Just out to there. If you're sure you're happy-"

"I am" Rose assured. "We're not hidden here. There're soldiers coming to and fro near-constantly. If I need aid at all, even aid in lifting him to his feet, there'll be people about to help me."

With a nod and a protective, reassuring smile the nurses parted company; Sally moving out of Rose's line of sight and up the path enough that she could be easily seen and approached by the gentlemen busying about their duties. Her pail at her feet, she found quiet contentment in sharing out steins of water and giving simple ointment treatments to fingers and ankles made sore by heat and labour; in making light conversation with the soldiers and in bringing a little jollity to those struggling to find it elsewise. She learned several interesting things as she chatted away, all of which she simply _had_ to share with Rose when she got the chance.

_Apparently_ , a passing Englishman shared, a corps of Jäger – crack-shot riflemen who wore green uniforms instead of the standard Hessian blue – had arrived this morning. They'd come from the north and followed on the heels of the aid drawn in by Captain Phillips' plea. Captain Brandt, the soldier said, was much aggrieved that they hadn't been on hand when his men were up against it, but he seemed pleased enough at the presence of extra hands; even if they seemed content only to loiter round the camp's gates, their bayonets making the group look like a terribly prickly, angry pincushion.

Also in the news, a _veritable bombshell_ \- there was talk going round among members of the English and Hessian high commands, said an overly tired page in desperate need of a place to air his worries, that the camp might be disbanded and moved elsewhere now that it'd been struck so decisively. A thousand thoughts and opinions boiled up in Sally at that notion, but it wasn't for her to get into heated debates with the poor chap who'd let the secret slip in his fatigue. She simply forced a smile through the _chagrin_ the idea brought on, offered up a stein of water and bid the man farewell as he made haste back to his duties.

While her ward-sister struggled on under the weight of information presently beyond Rose's ken, Rose herself was troubled by something that was equally beyond Sally's. For the first time since she'd found her poor wounded man propped up against the stable's outer wall, she'd noticed the uniform he wore – its colour muted by but breaking through the slowly drying muck and mud that coated it.

It was _blue_.

He was _Hessian_ , and she'd been so fixed on sorting him she'd not noticed until now!

"Meine Güte mich!" she exclaimed, all abashed laughter and pinked cheeks; gentle hands landing like feathers on his forearm. "Ich bin _gedankenlos_. Ich war mir sicher, dass Sie Engländer waren! _Bitte_ verzeih mir."

The invalid barely twitched for her realisation – simply looked away from her as she spoke to him – but Rose didn't hold that against him. His reserves, she surmised, must've been on the wane; exhaustion and cold creeping up; creeping in. She'd seek out a blanket for him soon, should he carry on like this – his head seeming to grow heavy; his gaze averted, as though he was forcing his focus elsewhere to distance himself from what was happening to him by inches as the minutes ticked by. An hour, Rose thought clinically. He had about an hour if she couldn't get him risen. But she wasn't the sort to abandon him to that. She had hope yet.

As noise swelled around them – passing soldiers trotting here and there; returning cavalrymen announced by pounding hoofbeats, disappearing as quickly as they came; a sing-song erupting among a group of soldiers near the well – Rose inched closer to her man and started binding his leg with strips of clean cotton; translating the warblings of what became a gleefully roving quintet as she worked.

_We killed seventy of the bastards!_

"Wir haben siebzig der Bastarde getötet…"

_And we'll kill seven hundred more!_

"Und wir werden siebenhundert mehr töten…"

_We'll cut them up with swords and axes!_

"Wir werden sie mit Schwertern und Äxten zerschneiden…"

_And soon there won't be anymore!_

"Und bald wird es nicht mehr sein!"

A soft giggle escaped the watchful Schwester as the group broke into applause – rounds of congratulations for everything from holding a tune to surviving the night going round and round among them as they searched for their next ditty. "They're a _silly_ lot" she mused fondly to herself, missing how her soldier's gaze flickered towards her as she spoke. He averted it quickly, but listened close as she glanced up and conferred reassuringly with a passing Englishman who'd paused to check on them.

"Don't worry" she said, forcing hope into her smile. "Not long now and he'll be strong enough to stand."

She couldn't have known it, but the invalid was banking on that.

* * *

Far and away from Rose's patient-caused-consternation, Sally found her portion of the camp engulfed in the same jollity that the joyous group's sing-song had brought on. Three of the five had wobbled up onto the well's lip now, the other two providing supporting shoulders as they worked out between them what next they might sing. Luckily enough for their joint endeavours, they had the pick of the crop in terms of topics to choose from. There'd been more strife overcome and more battles won close to home in the past days than there'd been in months!

As lyrics were tried and tested, Sally smiled fondly and cast her attention back out into her surrounds; mindful, as ever, of her duties. Little by way of nursing work passed her by over the next few minutes, but there was still gossip to catch up on when folk lingered for a drink.

So said a Hessian soldier, the lost to battle count had risen to twenty-four so far, but the wounded were much fewer – a side effect, for good or ill said the soldier, of the ferocity of the attack. Those that'd been wounded had died where they fell bar two or three; a fact that, guiltily, Sally was almost glad of. The triage was struggling along as it was without a new deluge of patients stretching its means yet thinner.

So said another – and this, oh _this_ made Sally _quake_ with glee - the local village had remained untouched by the violence that'd shaken the camp and, excitingly, hoped to send aid to its battered but still standing defender as soon as possible.

_**Aid**_.

Aid meant food. It meant fresh water and spare hands to help make right the damage that'd been done by axes and swords and flames. And dreamily too, perhaps, it meant more guards, and more nurses – if not of Sally's ilk, then wise women from the village who knew enough of medicine to tend to their communities and lend valuable assistance here too.

Caught up in the joy these possibilities brought her, Sally glanced about to see if anyone passing needed assistance and then gathered herself to scuttle down to Rose and share the good news. As she turned though, this way and that – looking first up towards the triage, then down towards the carcass of the stable block, and then out into the yard beyond the fence – movement out there, in what she'd first thought was only open space pockmarked with battle's desolation, caught her eye. And what'd caused it-

_Oh._

A sea-change seemed to ripple through the very air at the sight of him – of a horseman, come from nowhere, swathed in darkness. He was guiding the great beast he rode to and fro with such ease they could've passed for having one mind; the pair gliding almost soundlessly through the lingering fog as they set themselves upon the concluding throes of their search for _der Feinde_. Invisible to the woman drawn to the fence by their presence were the bodies that dotted the yard. Invisible to her were how certain of them were the new dead, taken by a killing party that'd struck out from the Hessian barracks while the dark rider now patrolling their grounds was collecting heads in the fields beyond their borders. They were invisible, but he and his mount were not, certainly, for much as distance and the rag across his nose and mouth stole his features from her, she knew by sight the prowling gait and commanding mien of Draufgänger; and knew as well that that horse had but _one_ master.

Relief of a strength once reserved only for old friends chased this realisation through Sally's system; something that, before this place, this time, would have never been. She didn't know this man she watched beyond the sight and sound of him, but even that small knowledge, now, after hell itself had risen and ravaged all she knew here, was enough to make the safety offered by his mere existence so welcome that Sally might've cheered were she unaware of how vulgar a display doing so would be. As it was she simply took a long, long moment to memorise the feeling of heart-ease so powerful an allied presence brought, then gathered herself to move off, to leave him to his work, and…stopped.

She was not alone, it seemed, in being riveted by the warrior prowling through the dim.

The warrior, his awareness pricked by her presence in his periphery, had also riveted on _her_.

Their eyes met across the distance and Sally froze where she stood, the fierceness in the man's bearing sending her throat as dry as the ash that'd turned his steed and armour in part silver-grey. Black on black on black he was beneath that coating - fit best for battle in the night's deepest reaches – but for all he'd likely been up against it the whole skirmish through there looked to be no weariness in him **.** There were no drooping shoulders, no curved back, no sign that he struggled at all bar how, when he neared her and tugged the rag that'd covered his face away so he might speak clearly, he breathed through an open mouth.

It was then, as that covering fell away forgotten, like her heart-ease was, that Sally could truly say she recognised him – but not only from the memory she had of him at rest by the stables. She knew this man by reputation too, much as she hadn't known she did upon their first meeting; hadn't seen then what she could now – the dagger-point tips of filed teeth visible beyond his lips as he found relatively clear air for the first time in hours.

Thomas, she realised, thunderstruck, had been right.

Der Reiter _**was**_ here, though he wore a face she never thought he would.

Realisation, in that moment, lashed through her like fire had the wheat field; though it was cold, deathly, _**heavy**_ where it collected in her gut. How _**close**_ she'd been to this man. How _**boisterous**_ she'd first been. How _**friendly**_. And dear God what she'd asked of him – _Sie sind ein Draufgänger?_ Sally could've died on the spot at the memory. She'd asked that of this man. **THIS MAN**. It was little wonder he'd laughed at her for the question; asked it back as if to probe if she'd known the depth of her folly.

She hadn't.

But _**God**_ she did now.

Her whole body racked with adrenaline, Sally thought for a moment to run, to escape and pretend she'd never seen this vestige of war and horror so close as to know what his eyes and his smile looked like over but inches. The urge was immense – Thomas's stories of this man who their enemies called The Devil spinning in her mind into a ferment – but when he called to her-

" _ **Dame**_ -"

She knew that voice…and not from a demon's lips either. Here _**was**_ the man from the stable block, and from the road; himself still despite how the night's strain had turned what'd been a warm rumble to gravel, and despite as well the warlord's mantle he now wore like a second skin. Caught by this familiarity, Sally fought back the urge to flee; forcing herself instead to still, and to breathe into the steadying hand she pressed surreptitiously against her diaphragm.

In through the nose – the scent of blood getting stronger while he lingered.

Out through the mouth – the sickly, cloying tang ignored as best it could be for now.

"Mein Herr" she wisped, realising belatedly that she'd barely ceased staring since first she'd caught sight of him. Vaguely mortified, she shrugged off her waterskin and went about preparing her visitor a stein of water. He had clearly fought the ash long and hard, after all. The least he deserved from her was a cool drink. "Vergib mir" she said. "Ich habe nicht erwartet, dich hier zu sehen."

That feeling, it turned out, was quite mutual. "Ich dachte dasselbe von dir" the Horseman noted, urgency beginning to pinch his features. "Warum bist du hier?"

The question gave Sally pause. "Wie bitte?" she asked, straightening up and offering the now full stein to him. Her effort was waved off brusquely; the repetition she got as sharp as shattered glass.

"Warum. Bist. Du. _Hier_? Du bist aus dem Dorf. War es angegriffen?"

" _Angegriffen_?" Sally's eyes went wide, that word – _attacked_ – bringing sense to the man's insistence. Sitting the stein atop her pail's lid, she pulled together as thorough an answer as her still limited skill with German would allow. " _Nein_ " she began. "Das Dorf ist _sicher_ …Ich bin nicht von dort. Ab-" Her eyes flickered skyward briefly; a moment's thought needed mid-flow. "Aber Soldaten, die dort stationiert waren, kamen hierher, um uns heute Morgen zu helfen." A slight nod to herself after she got that phrase out. Almost there. "Sie wären nicht gekommen, wenn es einen Angriff gegeben hätte."

They were simple words but reassuring ones – the last carried on a little rush of breath, as if she was worried that she'd lose them if she didn't hurry – and in the seconds they took to sink in and process the Horseman felt himself begin to relax. Regarding the woman who'd spoken them, who seemed smaller even than he knew she was from his perch atop his steed, he noticed for the first time how she shifted from foot to foot where she stood; how her hands faintly trembled; how she had begun to wring them while keeping them close to her body and how, despite what these unconscious things meant and the sight he must be fresh off the battlefield, she held his gaze until politeness dictated she glance away.

He thought back as she took in the sum of him, grasping to no avail for the name she'd called herself when first she'd departed his company. While that little detail hadn't stuck in his mind however, the chuckle he'd had over the bit of harmless teasing he'd given her _had_ done. It was a rare thing in wartime, levity, and he appreciated that the person at whose expense he'd found some had blushed prettily and bustled off in a rush, not fizzed angrily at him and mistaken his moment's joviality for cruelty.

If nothing else she was a brave, funny little thing.

"Wenn nicht aus dem Dorf" he asked, his voice gentler now; a lick of honest curiosity laced with the hope that he might calm her a little before they parted ways prompting the question. "Woher kommst du? Lebst du hier?"

Sally blinked up at him, the change of tack enough of a surprise that it took a moment for her to answer. "...Ah- Ja" she said. "Ich bin eine Schwester aus dem Krankenhaus." She nodded towards the triage, glancing between it and the Horseman. "Drüben…Just there."

"Eine _Schwester_?" he repeated, a drop of wit in the tilt of his head; in how he crooked a brow in joking askance. "Eine Schwester für… _apples_ , yes? Gibt es kurative Eigenschaften in Äpfeln?"

The nurse spluttered softly at the question, her mouth agape briefly before a grin took it up at the corners; a gesture, she was surprised to note, that her visitor copied in his own muted way. Feeling a little like a mouse to his droll and watchful cat – one that said cat's ostensible geniality was making _much_ too brave for its own good – Sally stood a little taller as she shook her head. " _No_ " she countered, explaining and playing along at once. "Das war ein _Gefallen_. Ich bin eine Schwester für Soldaten. For _soldiers_."

A low hum and a little nod met her proclamation, the amused look in the man's eyes making Sally braver yet. She picked up her stein and edged a step closer, mindful of how the Horseman shifted to angle Gänger's hind quarters – where his swords and what she assumed was a cloak-covered saddlebag hung – away from her as she approached. When both horse and master were settled, she reached over the fence and offered him the stein once more; a reserved but friendly smile upon her lips. "Und _Reiter_. Trinken Sie etwas. Bitte."

This time, she was not denied. A hand came down - the glove worn upon it more finely made than most anything Sally had yet seen during her time at the camp - and plucked the vessel from her fingers; the man's first sip, as she thought it might be, a starter for ten. He came up gasping once the stein was empty, his head back and mouth open, and Sally, though her heart stuttered at the sight of the daggers revealed by the gesture, did not think to flee.

Dropping down on one knee by her pail a moment, she filled her auxiliary stein to the brim from it and then edged back to the Horseman's side where, bless the man, he made as much of a beeline for the vessel as Ganger had for her basket when first they'd met. A quick stein-swap later and he was drinking deep again, the only break coming when he set those fierce teeth of his to tugging off one of his gloves. The moment his hand was freed it was used to wipe the water he'd lost to his chin up over his cheeks, his eyes, and his brow, fighting to be rid of some part of what was much more than a simple morning's worth of grime. He was ready to sacrifice a mouthful of water from the stein to the cause when the attentive Schwester spoke up.

"Mein Herr" she called, reaching up again to offer him a clean piece of cloth; newly wet by a handful of water from the pail. "Für dein Gesicht."

"Für mein-" A soft huff of surprise escaped the Horseman's chest. He nodded by way of a thank you, accepting the rag as his diminutive companion favoured him with another of her smiles; this one a little less measured than the last. A half-minute's worth of effort saw him looking more like himself, the feeling of cool air on clean skin lifting his spirits enough that he found a little more time for the helpful lady at his side than he might've otherwise.

"And him?" he asked, returning Sally's stein - the cloth tucked through its handle - and giving Gänger's neck a rub. He then pointed to the nearby pail and regarded its custodian questioningly. "Kann er auch trinken?"

A blink from the nurse.

The Horseman cocked his head a fraction. "Is soldier also" he said. "Same need für vater; für sleep; für food. Same joy; same fear. Same fight, like me; in fire; in smoke."

She could hardly argue that one.

Sally nodded quickly, an enthused, "Of _course_ " coming up as she set down her wares and put her back into de-lidding and dragging the pail as close to the two-slat fence as she could. They sat on the horizontal, those slats – one about five feet off the ground, the other about two – and left easily enough space between them for the nurse to settle, heft the pail through and give it a push towards her most unexpected guests.

Her effort was met with a flurry of movement; the Horseman pulling off his second glove, unclipping from his neck the heavy cloak that draped down over Gänger's hind end and dismounting smoothly. He carefully arranged the garment where it lay so the fluffy-headed innocent settled not six feet from it would be spared the sight of what it hid, tucked his gloves away beside it and then worked the stallion's bit and reins free so he could drink uninhibited; which he did the second he could with abandon enough that his master had to keep a foot planted next to the bucket to stop it from toppling over.

His gusto brought the man concern and amusement, but it didn't surprise him. It wasn't in the nature of a horse, no matter his training, to be at ease in the presence of a conflagration. That fear brought on gasping breaths and that in turn made lungs burn and throats parched; ailments that only rest and fresh water by the hundredweight would soothe. For now though, with so much work yet to be done, one deep pail's-worth would suffice. Cool and crisp still, the water within splashed up along the bridge of Gänger's nose as he drank, and was caught there and rubbed further up still towards his eyes by his attentive master. Knuckles and nails both sought clumps of ash, each one brushed or scratched away to spare the stallion yet further discomfort; and to help man and mount – freed now from battle's grip - reconnect with each other in the calm as they had at strife's close since their journeys together had begun.

Minutes passed and they remained thus – Gänger absorbed in drinking, his master knelt down as he groomed the stallion's face and their silent guest, settled a few paces to their left on the fence's lowest rung. Rapt at the sight of them but too respectful of their need for a moment's peace to disturb them by fussing, Sally contented herself instead with keeping watch over the roadway; making sure she wasn't needed by any passers by while the _Devil to their Enemies_ – for that was who he was, she reminded herself, no matter how benign he might've seemed – saw to his steed. Adrenaline crept through her every time that thought crossed her mind. It made her throat tighten and her breath hitch, but whether it was fear of him that brought it on or some murky mixture of awe, danger and a myriad of other formless, nameless things, she didn't know.

Whatever it was, she jumped slightly in place when next he spoke to her.

"Für him" the Horseman said, gesturing to Gänger who, by the look of things, was refreshed and intent on catching his master's face with his sopping muzzle. Every time he tried a hand gently pushed him aside."Zis-" He indicated the stallion's next attempt; thwarted. "Is danke." A thoughtful silence came and went; words sought and tested. "…Thank you… _Grateful_."

Despite herself, Sally felt a grin tug at her lips for his effort. "Er ist sehr willkommen" she replied, struggling with a giggle when the crafty stallion got so close to his master's cheek that he had to shift back to escape him. Curious then, wondering quite how firm the man's command of English was, she brooked, "…As you are."

That he looked at her when she spoke was encouraging, no matter how her breath threatened to escape her for his attention, and how that betrayal made the rest of what she had to say come out sounding like kindness built on rattled nerves.

"To any help I can give you."

The Horseman considered her for a long moment, her words not so foreign to him that their meaning was totally lost. He drew breath to reply - to politely decline what aid she offered for, simply, he had no need of it - only to jolt in place at the sudden cry of a carrion bird, perched upon his saddle. It pecked, pulling at his travelling cloak – interested, Sally surmised, in the blood that must've coated it in places.

Irritated, the mercenary rose swiftly; waving the shrieking thing away before looking back at his diminutive companion. She too had taken to her feet at the interruption, and stood now beyond the fence as she had when first they'd remade their acquaintance. "Even ze bird" he said peevishly. "Vish rest from zis air. Come-" Stepping round easeful Gänger, he took up the pail and passed it over to Sally; gesturing to the triage when his hands were free. "Inside."

"In- I-" Sally tripped over the word, reminded suddenly of dear Thomas and his warning on the balcony the night before. The comparison between the two men was ridiculous, but it got her moving all the same. "Yes" she said, backing up a pace or so; readying herself for the small journey. She needed to fresh her pail no matter the air; needed to fetch more supplies, for surely she and Rose would be short soon. And most pressingly, she needed to check on her dear ailing friend who'd fought til the last shot was fired.

Yes. Inside it was, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Meine Güte mich! Ich bin gedankenlos. Ich war mir sicher, dass Sie Engländer waren! Bitte verzeih mir." Goodness me! I am thoughtless. I was sure you were English! Please forgive me
> 
> "Dame-" Madam
> 
> "Mein Herr. Vergib mir. Ich habe nicht erwartet, dich hier zu sehen." Sir. Forgive me. I did not expect to see you here
> 
> "Ich dachte dasselbe von dir. Warum bist du hier?" I thought the same of you. Why are you here?
> 
> "Wie bitte?" I beg your pardon?
> 
> "Warum. Bist. Du. Hier? Du bist aus dem Dorf. War es angegriffen?" Why. Are. You. Here? You're from the village. Was it attacked?
> 
> "Angegriffen? Nein. Das Dorf ist sicher…Ich bin nicht von dort. Ab- Aber Soldaten, die dort stationiert waren, kamen hierher, um uns heute Morgen zu helfen. Sie wären nicht gekommen, wenn es einen Angriff gegeben hätte." Attacked? No. The village is safe. I'm not from there. But soldiers stationed there came here to help us this morning. They would not have come if there had been an attack
> 
> "Wenn nicht aus dem Dorf, woher kommst du? Lebst du hier?" If not from the village, where are you from? Do you live here?
> 
> "Ja. Ich bin eine Schwester aus dem Krankenhaus." Yes. I am a nurse/sister from the hospital
> 
> "Eine Schwester?" A nurse/sister?
> 
> "Gibt es kurative Eigenschaften in Äpfeln?" Are there any curative properties in apples?
> 
> "Das war ein Gefallen. Ich bin eine Schwester für Soldaten. That was a favour. I'm a nurse/sister for soldiers
> 
> "Und Reiter. Trinken Sie etwas. Bitte." And horsemen. Drink something. Please
> 
> "Mein Herr. Für dein Gesicht." Sir. For your face
> 
> "Für mein-" For my-
> 
> "Kann er auch trinken?" Can he drink too?
> 
> "Er ist sehr willkommen" He is very welcome


	10. The Lesson

Sally pressed her back to the triage's main door as it clicked shut behind her and laughed breathily, _disbelievingly_ , into the quiet of the hall. She looked up towards the ceiling, then left, then right, then to the wooden floor beneath her boots, searching for some kind of sense she could make of what had just happened. Of who she'd just _**met**_ , and who he was, and what that _**meant**_. She searched, but found her pail and her waterskin in place of logic or reason; discarded the moment she'd opened the door so she could close it and gather herself without der Reiter's gaze on her back.

_**Der Reiter** _

Another little puff of laughter escaped her as that name processed. Then another. Then _another_ and Sally braced herself; knowing - or at least thinking she did - that this was the prelude what she considered to be a _**long**_ overdue hyperventilation fit. She waited, sure the walls would close in and she'd be rendered helpless; sure the corridor's air would flee from her at any moment. But it didn't. Not even a little bit, and not even again with the shock of hearing from within Mr Barmouth's office – its door gaping wide and off centre thanks to Dr Hall's kick – the sound of a bolt clicking open and a rusty, almost painful creak.

Freezing where she knelt, Sally fixed her every sense on the doorway and what lay beyond. Laboured breathing followed that click, that creak; a muffled groan and heavy footsteps too before their maker revealed himself in a stumbling rush to be Henry Barmouth himself. The man landed with some force against his door's frame, was covered in cobwebs and sweat and grime and seemed for all the world, as he gave the hall a cursory look, to completely miss the presence of the watchful little nurse among her pile of wares near the door. Milky eyed and squinting in the light, he mopped at his face with a kerchief that he fumbled from his breast pocket, then lurched back from the corridor and stumbled into his office; numb hands quickly set to wrenching open a window, and to pawing through and moving his effects with such urgency that many were knocked clatteringly to the floor.

Left alone in the hall, Sally gathered up her wares and made careful tracks towards the stove room. A moment there to fill her pail and her waterskin and then she'd be off to the ward; to Thomas, and to her superiors too. Something about Barmouth's reappearance sat strangely with her. She wondered, as she pushed through the steam and set to work, if they knew he'd returned at all.

* * *

Far and away from the corridor and the steam, Rose was settled upon her lidded pail, her chin resting in the palms of her hands. She was looking upon her man as she sat there; her poor wounded warrior who, despite her best and most persuasive efforts, categorically refused to be budged from where he was propped up against the stable's outermost wall. She'd worn his patience so thin with trying to convince him in fact that, in frustration, he'd demanded she speak to him in English instead of his native German – saying that he could understand her mother tongue more easily than he could his own when _**she**_ was speaking it. It was that barb that had her retire to the pail for a moment's breathing room; a moment to think.

She hadn't a means to gauge time's passing without a sandglass, but Rose guessed that it had been roughly forty minutes since last she'd made a professional assessment of her soldier's chances – forty of the hour or so she'd last given him as time through-which he might survive without further aid; through-which the cold would start to dull him down; sap his strength; pull him under. Many times had she seen the same fight fought and lost up in the triage; countless men, the brave and the petrified both, the stoic and the screaming, being led through the valley in death's shadow. She wondered which this man would be, if it came down to it; if he stayed where he was.

The clatter of talons on the aged wooden fence that parted the roadway from the wheat fields broke Rose from her morose wonderings with a jolt and a gasp. A large carrion bird perched upon its top-most rung, and cast its beady black gaze out over the invalid and his stalwart protector. A warbling cry escaped its beak – not the usual cawing scream. Something other; almost words but not. Once it did this. Twice, its head tilting as it took in the scene; watched the once seated woman rise, raise a hand and-

"Shoo!" Rose snapped, waving the bird away and then glancing up and down the path as it bounced its way further along the fence. Everywhere men hurried along with their duties. Charred wood was being moved off the path; out of harm's way. The well was being tended to by the same roving quintet that'd struck up their happy singsong earlier. They sang still, but with new purpose as they brushed and gathered and wiped and mended. There was so much other _**work**_ she might be doing. So much more she might _**help**_ with, yet here she was – pinioned in one place, tending to the most _truculent man_ …

Rose caught herself before temper could catch her foul. Surliness was never a reason to triage a person. But if that surliness, that truculence, was immovable enough to be a person's undoing – to make assisting him impossible – it was not for her to force him to live. What was her duty though was to inform him of his predicament in a manner he could understand. Thus, she eased herself down upon her knees beside her soldier and spoke when his exhausted eyes fixed on her.

"Listen to me." English for him, like he'd asked for; slowly, so he could follow. "If you do not try and stand soon, you will lose the strength to. And I will not be able to help you further. I will leave you here. And you will die." She glanced to the ground the man sat upon, then met his eyes again. "Likely in a puddle of your own piss. Your own shit." Rose sneered at the idea as much as she did the profanity, mentally blaming the latter on how long she'd spent around soldiers. Then, she spoke again.

"That would be a sad end to a _brave_ life. Wouldn't it."

And the invalid, the soldier. He nodded. She **had** him.

* * *

Their heads bent together as they conversed privately near the entrance of the ward, Robin and Anne wore expressions of relief and concern both. A case of Mortification appeared to be brewing in the foot of one of their longer-standing patients, and there was little they could do bar amputate to stem the spread. Such had been the bulk of their discussion, but now that surgery's particulars were set a small moment was devoted to their reconnaissance work. Anne had stopped by the nurse's quarters, and her report was making for reassuring listening.

"There was nothing there" she confided, Robin's shoulders relaxing just a hint in that knowledge. "Not even a tincture for sleep or sore joints or anything other. Nothing but books and little bushels of dried flowers, a small rug, blankets, combs, spare boots…"

"Feminine necessities, all" Robin smiled, accepting with good humour the gentle tap Anne gave his arm.

"Yes" she huffed, mock defensiveness in her voice. "Well-"

Anne and Robin leapt half out of their skin as the ward's door flew open with a great bang. They put two feet's distance between themselves in a breath's-span, and only relaxed when they realised the cause of the ruckus – poor Sally weighed down under her various wares and her now full bucket. Bless the nurse, she looked terribly hangdog for having scared them, and sounded it too once she'd managed to set all she carried down and pull in enough breath to speak to them.

"I'm sorry sir" she said to Robin, then bowed her head to address the Matron. "Ms Taymar. Very sorry for all of that- that _**racket**_ I just caused." Wiping her hands on her pinny, Sally snuck a glance back towards the corridor and then went on. "But I just saw Mister Barmouth. Did you know he'd returned?"

Their expressions were a picture. "We did _not_ " Robin said, glancing to Anne and then towards the ward's door. "Is he in his study? Did he speak to you?"

"Yes sir" Sally said. "And no sir, he didn't. There was a click-" She gestured with a hand; like she was turning a key. "A creak, as I took a moment to rest in the hall after finishing a round of the camp. Just a little minute, and I heard him in his office."

She needed to say no more. With brief pats for her shoulders and encouragement to get back to it, Robin and Anne made haste for Barmouth's office. They were down the hall and around the corner in seconds, and were quickly swept up in discussions that, thanks to the ward's door not quite clicking to in their great rush, Sally could quite easily overhear.

"-through the window, of course!" she heard Barmouth spit. "Hell if I was risking the road into camp so close after a skirmish! I came through the brush and jimmied my window open from outside!"

Ms Taymar now. "Where on Earth did you find yourself?"

A few muffled exchanges later, it was Barmouth. "-sack the fool who _**besmirched**_ my office and kicked in my **DOOR**!"

And then Robin. " _ **I**_ kicked in the door, Henry, while I was looking for you! There was a _**fire**_ raging, man!"

Round and round they went, the curious nurse getting more and more engrossed in their conversation until-

"Hello!"

-it was _her turn_ to be sent half out of her skin. Sally whirled on the spot, her hands flying to her chest as she came face to face with one of the triage's visiting Schwesters. Blonde like she was but fuller figured, the woman's cheeky eyes smiled just like her lips did as she met this new-old face about the ward properly for the first time. Her name, Sally soon learned between the lady's profuse apologies for startling her, was Nurse Cartwright.

" _Penny_ Cartwright" she told her affably. "Only my father calls me Penelope. And that there-" A gesture indicated a second lady with whom Sally had yet to make an acquaintance. Slight of frame and mousy haired, she waved happily when she caught Sally's eye and stood to make her way over. "Is Marie Atwood. We've been pulled from pillar to post for months now. From camp to camp to camp, as needed."

"We barely pitch our tents now" Marie put in playfully. She gave her long-time travelling companion a gentle nudge with her hip as she joined her, and exaggerated a stumble when Penny paid her back in kind. "Not much point, the amount we're moved on."

"I can't imagine what that must be _**like**_ " Sally commiserated, all gentle smiles for this welcome pair. "I've known nothing but this place." She gestured about the ward; cast a glance round in hopes of spying her Thomas – No luck. "Is it not frightening, being out on-"

" **I'M TELLING YOU HALL**!" came a bellow from the hallway; the nurses wincing as one at the volume and turning scowls towards its source. " **CONDUCT SUCH AS THIS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED**!"

" _And nor will your fat mouth, you bullock_!" Penny snapped sotto voce, her cheekiness bringing her ward-sisters a gasp and a scandalised titter as she bustled over and pushed the door to. A collective sigh of relief was had at that by half the ward, it seemed; what chatter there had been between brothers in arms picking up again where it'd died off in the din. Returning to her fellows, Penny tsked and shook her head. "Sounds like a right one, him."

"Not so different from our old Hessian Hauptmann though, aye?" Marie proffered, adjusting the bow she'd tied in her apron's strings. " _ **Goodness**_ that man could shout. Kept his men on a terribly short leash too. Never any time spared for rest; for _tea_."

"A _crime_ , that" Sally enthused through a look of joking affront. "You heard nothing from me" she chortled. "And are to read nothing into this, but I'd gladly trade you our-" Her voice was made a whisper for the length of a word. " _Bullock_ for him. For your Hauptmann. We've a way with soldiers here, I think – especially Hessian ones. I've seen more than one like him taking tea" she said. "Seen them laugh; heard them _tell stories_ even. He couldn't have been _**so**_ terrible."

The disbelief on Marie's face was enough to set Penny off cackling. Warm and infectious, it soon had her follow nurses stifling giggles of their own; neither woman willing to risk the wrath of their superiors – absent now or not – the way self-confident Penny was. With promises to catch up later in the day, the ladies parted company; Penny and Marie getting back to their allotted rounds and Sally, quickened by the thought of her own sister-nurse left alone in the camp in her absence, making haste with her wares to Thomas's side. Patient numbers meant he had been laid upon a makeshift cot when he'd been taken ill, and there he remained when she reached him – Sally's storyteller; her brave, brave friend who ailed for reasons she as yet couldn't place.

Woundless bar grazes, the young man had fallen into a faint from which he seemed unable to rouse. The skin upon his neck, his face, was pale; clammy to the touch of the backs of Sally's fingers. His breath was rapid and shallow at once – this discernible even though he lay upon his side, his back to the room and to his deeply concerned visitor – and he did not seem to stir at all when, carefully, she knelt beside him. Gentle hands found his shoulder, his upper arm, and Sally waited, hopeful, that he might come to her; might wake but, no. He was still but for how his back moved as he breathed, and Sally spoke to him; pushing back thoughts that he was beyond even that sliver of human contact.

"Thomas" she murmured, her voice gentle and quiet; nothing like the bustle of the ward. "Hörst du mich? Bitte. Hör mich. Wir sind alle in Sicherheit. Rose…Mir… Sie. Alles sicher… Alles sicher. Wir vermissen dich euch sehr. So sehr, Thomas…Wir brauchen dich hier. Um uns zu kümmern." Reaching out, Sally gave Thomas's hair a little stroke. There was a secret prime for telling - a certain person so high in Thomas's esteem who she'd met and who he might also meet if he woke - and she leaned in a little closer, made her voice all the softer in the telling for all it was suffused with excitement. "Thomas, der Reiter ist hier!" she enthused. "Du hattest Recht!...Hörst du mich?...Dear one? Do you hear me?"

The soft tap of a cane upon the wooden floor drew Sally's gaze up from her stricken friend. Drawn by her concern, the same green-eyed soldier who'd given Dr Hall a run for his money during the skirmish was on the approach; his eyes sad and legs, though steady, obviously sore by the limp he carried. "…Tut er nicht, Frau" he said, easing to a cautious stop just a few paces clear of she and Thomas. As he spoke on -

"Er wird nicht aufwachen"

\- his name came back to Sally.

"Herr Müller" she greeted, pausing an attempt to stand when he held up his hand.

"Bitte" he said, bowing his head slightly. "Franz."

"…Franz. Sie haben keine Veränderung an ihm gesehen?"

"Nein" he said regretfully. "Keiner. Er bewegt sich von Zeit zu Zeit ein bisschen, wacht aber nicht auf."

Sally frowned, huffing out a sigh as she grieved, "Ach _nein_." Not wanting to sour the mood however, she gestured to her more healthful looking counterpart and posed him a question through a demure smile. "Fühlst Du Dich besser? Du siehst es aus. Auf deinen Füßen."

At her observation, Franz puffed up noticeably. It was mostly for show, but the warmth it leant to the nurse's expression was worth the effort. "Ja viel besser" he said, giving his thigh a tentative pat. It was will more than anything that smothered the wince even that gentle contact caused, and he pushed on, quickly changing the subject. "Ich hatte gehofft, Rose zu sehen. Um ihr dafür zu danken, dass sie mich ertragen hat." He smiled at the soft titter that comment earned him. "Weißt du wo sie ist?"

"Ja" Sally nodded, gesturing in the direction of the camp's bottom-most regions – by the well and the stables and the charred fields. "Sie ist schon eine Weile in der Nähe des Stalls" she said, giving Thomas a lingering glance before rising and gathering her wares. "Und Sie wartet auf mich. Ich sollte zu ihr gehen. G-"

" _ **Wir**_ sollten" Franz cut in. He limped towards and opened the balcony's door to allow their passage, gesturing through at Sally's questioning look. "Nach Ihnen" he said, the fresh air wisping through already rallying his strength; straightening his back. "Ich werde nicht an diesem Ort bleiben. Männer sterben hier, aber ich werde es nicht. Mitkommen. Aus."

As it'd been the night prior, Sally mused fondly as she did as he bade, there was no arguing with him. _Ich kann stehen_ he'd said. I can stand. And she believed him. She just hoped he'd be able to come their journey's end.

* * *

" _Darling_!"

"Dear _lady_!"

All of the supplies Sally had been carrying clattered to the ground as she and Rose met in a joyous embrace; their ebullient greetings effused through giggles and buoyed by the glee each found in returning to her sister-nurse's company. Five minutes it'd taken she and Franz to traverse the cobbled road down to the stables, but to Rose, who'd been watching them coming since first she'd caught sight of Sally's golden head, it'd felt like an hour. They turned each other in a little circle before breaking apart, Sally's gleefully bubbled -

"I have so much to _**tell you**_!"

\- headed off by something of a tirade.

"And I you! You won't _believe_ the time I've had!" Rose gestured to a small group of men, three at a glance, who were working on getting her soldier, her invalid, on his feet. One under each of his arms and another clutching his lapels, they eased him up onto his near flaccid legs with a great **HEAVE** only to almost drop him when, for all their efforts, he limpened and forced them to take even more of his weight than first they had. Rose, watching them, near growled with frustration. She ran her hands through her hair, tugged at it, then pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes before calling to her helpers. "Halte ihn fest!" she implored, scowling when she looked over towards them and noted the return of an unwanted, beaky face upon the fence top. "And do be rid of that bird!"

The bird she spoke of seemed to preen at her notice; its sharp beak set to cleaning God only knew what off its wings; its feet. It had retaken its post near the invalid and his helpers the moment Rose had looked away, and had been keeping an eye on them since; waiting, perhaps, for them to give up so that it might make a warm dinner of their ailing charge. Undeterred by hands waved in its direction the bird gave a raspy caw; continuing its vigil as the harried woman turned back to her newly arrived counterpart.

"He must be" Rose griped, sparing but an exasperated point for the invalid. "The most _**awkward**_ man I've ever had to work with! And I say that not because he is rude! And he _**is**_. I say it because he has resisted _**every**_ opportunity to _**rise**_ I've given him and now he finds he cannot! And if he cannot, if he doesn't rouse, I can't help him! I've told him this. He won't listen. I fear-" She huffed out a breath, shaking her head and, for the first time, noticing Franz's presence. Seeing him, her frustrated glare softened into a weary smile.

"Mein Herr" she greeted.

"Fräulein" Franz replied, bowing just slightly.

As the pair got reacquainted – Rose venting now in raggedy German as they found a spot against the nearest fence where Franz could rest – Sally put aside all thoughts of gossip for the moment and took in the pandemonium surrounding the invalid. Two of the three men propping the silly thing up were throwing ever more colourful curses at him, while the third, seeing her approach, fought in vain to get them to _stop_. His apologetic grimace was appreciated but unnecessary.

"Sir" Sally called, raising her voice slightly as she spoke to the invalid. " _ **Sir**_?"

" _Hessisch_ " the apologetic soldier under the man's left arm put in, tugging lightly at the raggedy jacket he wore. "Is Hessisch, Dame."

Sally frowned. "Das ist egal" she said, clicking her fingers near the invalid's ear. As before, he didn't respond. "Ich möchte eine Reaktion. Ich muss wissen, dass er wach ist."

The chap under the invalid's right arm snorted. "Ich kann ihn wecken" he groused, raising a foot to aim a kick at his wounded leg. He didn't land it, but that didn't stop his counterparts from giving him what for and that- _Oh that didn't help at all_. Round and round they went, all three of them, snips and quibbles and gripes getting more and more heated as the seconds ticked by. They snarled around and over Sally's attempts at defusing the situation, and would've carried on even after she threw her hands up in frustration and turned from them if not for a voice rasping out from where the carrion bird still watched them.

" _Tot_!"

All the sound in the world drained away in an instant for the squabbling threesome and the frazzled nurse. They froze where they stood, their voices and rancour cutting off as one as they looked towards the voice they'd all swear blind they'd heard. Upon the fence before them perched the bird, bobbing its head, fluffing its wings, and watching, watching, watching them watch it. Its beak opened again, nothing but a Raven's rasp escaping.

Breaths short, men and nurse looked to each other. "Hast du das gehört?" one asked his fellows.

They nodded, glancing between him and the bird, and then back towards their counterparts as Rose - caught as much by the sudden silence as she was by the implication of speech she'd touch the Bible to having half-perceived in the bird's croaking - left Franz's side and began a halting approach.

"Geht es dir gut?" she called.

She made it all of three steps.

Talons forth and shrieking the black and bloodied bird hurled itself at the invalid's face; beak and claws aiming for his eyes. The pain and the impact both startled him - made him yelp, and jolt, and bat with a hand as he took his own weight on his legs and looked round frantically for what'd come for him; the bird's wheeling, jagged path as it seemed to flee sending it barrelling down the trail between stable and fields and work yard and onward, past a form that had been prowling its way clear of the yard and out towards the sea of fire-blackened stalks that bracketed the camp. _Had been_ , until the invalid caught sight of it and loosed the most blood curdling of screams.

The noise wrenched the wanderer round on his axis, his horse rearing, bellowing for the return of what sounded like battle as his master surveyed the scene in but a second. Spurred heels nudged sleek sides then; horse and Horseman advancing on the ungainly group that, at the sight of him, fell in on its centre – the invalid pinioned, horrified and weakly struggling, against the stable-block's outer wall.

At their seeming turn to madness, Rose shrieked and fought with what strength she had in her to dissuade them; to break her poor ailing soldier free as what to him was a vision of Hell itself – one that she had yet to fully process in the moment's heat – stalked him like a hunting wolf would a lame stag. It was only when riding boots hit earth and Sally, gripped in the throat and chest by shock and sudden _knowing_ , cried out-

" **ROSE**!"

-that her attention strayed for long enough to catch an implication of what was coming. Sally's outstretched arms that begged her close came too late; blackness and the scent of leather and blood forcing Rose a few paces back with a firm push from armoured forearm to abdomen. Unthinking she made to approach again, to regain ground and get to her man, but the effort earned her only canon-fire-by-voice and the sight of dagger-teeth as the Horseman rounded on her.

" **HALT**!" he roared, suddenly so close to her face that she felt his breath on her cheek in the split second before she screeched and bolted; her flight setting her on a collision course with Sally who had sprung towards her in the hope of dragging her clear. The women caught each other mid-stride, hands catching arms and clutching tight as they rushed to put as much distance between themselves and the scene as they could.

A voice though-

" _ **DAAAAH-MEEEEEH**_!"

-the invalid's howling, broken voice-

" _ **DAAAAH-MEEEEEH**_!"

-caught Rose in the gut mid-retreat; made her falter so in her stride that Sally managed to yank herself free from her grasp without meaning to. She turned back searchingly for her; her arms again outstretched as she called out her name, as she pled with her, but her ward-sister would not be moved. This man who screamed for them, Rose knew, they had a responsibility to aid; a responsibility that endured no matter their fellows' sudden madness and the appearance out the mist of a razor-mouthed demon - drawn in seemingly by their man's suffering. He needed them. They _**could not**_ leave. Thus, with every ounce of bravery in her set to casting her spine in iron, Rose turned back towards the din as-

" _ **DAH-MEH WAI**_ -"

-it died off behind the gloved hand the Horseman clamped vice-like over his prisoner's mouth.

" **GENUG**!" he snapped, as close to the wounded man's face as he had been to Rose's seconds back. He lingered there for a long moment, all bared teeth and empty eyes as he took in the look of him; saw the bone-deep terror wracking him; felt him twitch and spasm with panic and pain as the soldiers at his arms held him fast, and as the Horseman made a cursory search of his person with his free hand. No weapons were forthcoming, though he did note the presence of the neat and tidy bandage tied tight about the quivering man's injured thigh. The sight of it incensed him, and made the muffled shriek the invalid loosed when the soldier who'd so wanted to strike him earlier gave into his lesser angels and landed a belting kick all the more satisfying. Despite this though, he halted with a look the aggressive man's attempt at an encore and then, with the slowness of molten metal on the creep towards flesh, returned his full attention to their captive. Growled words followed -

"Sie haben kein _**Recht**_ , mit _**ihnen**_ zu sprechen"

\- that were met by a fervent cry from Rose.

" **Ja tut er**!"

Beside her, Sally felt her stomach fall right down to her knees. " _ **Rose**_!" she rasped, planting herself between her dear friend and the scene. She clutched at her shoulders, panicked and pleading with her; praying that she could get her moving, get them _**away**_. "Something's _**wrong**_. So _**wrong**_ , Rose. _**Please**_. Let them- Let him-"

" _Let_ _ **him**_?" Rose repeated, pulling back from Sally sharply; aghast at her seeming betrayal of their soldier. "Let him _**what**_ ,Sally? _**Torture**_ that poor man?!"

" _ **That is not what I said**_!" Sally snapped, wilting and bristling at once at the accusation.

"Then _**wha**_ -"

"He's frightened! Frightened of a _**Hessian man**_ , Rose! Why-"

" _ **Why**_?! **HE** -" A sharp point indicated der Reiter. " _ **Attacked him**_!"

"And _**why would he do that**_?! Think! _**Why wou**_ -"

" **SCHWEIGEN**!"

Canon-fire again, that voice - the arguing women's deadlock broken as easily as dry birch over a knee. They spun to face der Reiter as one, clutching each other tightly despite how they'd snarled back and forth; shared horror as what was unfolding before them bridging the gap misunderstanding had caused. It was Rose, again, who found her voice first; her courage too, for she disobeyed the hawkishly watchful mercenary the moment she'd gathered the breath to.

"Ich kann nicht sein!" she cried, gesturing to the crumpled invalid the group held captive. "Warum verletzt du ihn? Er ist einer von euch!"

"Ist er?" the Horseman asked, sounding for all the world like he was genuinely shocked and of a mind to be persuaded. The question hung in the air as he regarded the pair; taking them in properly for the first time since he had drawn near. One known to him and one not, they dressed identically and thus, he surmised, were nurses both - those whose resources, whose bandages, had been _**wasted**_ as they wandered unescorted so far from their triage; through a camp newly ravaged and not yet made conclusively safe. He understood the necessity of it; the need for skilled hands to tend the wounded, to bolster the troops with their presence, their wares, their water. But this was not their world, out here, and if they did not learn that quickly and adapt in kind all of their usefulness would end with the strike of a lucky dagger. With that in mind, he prompted again.

"Ist er Hessisch, Dame?"

The words, to Rose, were almost taunting. "Du kannst ihn _**sehen**_ " she grieved, wringing her hands beseechingly. "Bitte, _**bitte**_ , du kannst ihn _**hören**_! Lass ihn gehen!"

"Ich kann" the Horseman agreed, watching then as the nurse he recognised shifted where she stood; angling herself so she could better see the invalid and the soldiers holding him at bay. Ordinarily he might have perceived such a shift of attention as rude, but now? He had to wonder if there was anything like _wisdom_ in her. "Und Sie, Fräulein Apfel?" he asked, pleased that after a moment spent processing quite what he'd called her, the blonde nurse met his eye. He inclined his head a half inch towards his captive, indicating him without looking away from her. "Glaubst du, er ist Hessisch?"

"I-" Sally caught herself short, Rose's grip on her arm tightening almost painfully as she realised – with that name, with _Miss Apple_ – quite who it was that her sister-nurse had met by the stables. Frightened eyes that had fixed on der Reiter returned to Sally when she spoke again–

"Ich war mir sicher…Aber jetzt bin ich nicht"

-but saw in her nothing of the shock Rose herself felt at this revelation; nothing of shock and little of _**fear**_ either of the beast that had descended on their quiet corner of the camp to steal up their soldier. How this could be Rose didn't know anymore than she did the cause of Sally's new uncertainty. Now though was not the time for understanding.

"Ich werde fragen" der Reiter proclaimed, his words gentling on his next breath to a degree that frankly startled as he returned his attention to his captive. "Mein _Freund"_ he said, gesturing for the soldiers restraining him to loosen their grip enough that he was more comfortable, though still held securely. "Warum hast du Angst? Hm?" Slowly, he removed his hand from the man's mouth; the trembling lips revealed bitten bloody in fright. "Warum hast du Angst? Ich bin dein Freund. Wir sind Hessisch, Sie und ich. Ja? Du hast mich erschreckt, als du geschrien hast. Das ist alles. Wir sind Freunde."

Silence met his effort, the invalid's wild eyes darting everywhere but towards his captor's face. The lesson progressing, the Horseman glanced over towards the nurses. "Du verstehst mich?" he prompted, the words a statement, less a question. It was met in short order by two stiff little nods. Satisfied, he returned his attention to the invalid.

"Sprich mit mir, mein Freund" the Horseman encouraged, watching again how his captive's eyes flew all over but towards him; the one person close by that spoke to him. "Mein Freund" he pressed, tapping his cheek when his gaze lingered too long on the nurses. "Schau mich an… _Schau mich an_.'

Another voice then -

"…Schaue ihn an"

\- the unfamiliar nurse speaking up when the invalid paid the Horseman's command no heed. She attracted the warrior's eye for her effort, much as it did nothing to shift his captive's gaze to where it needed to be, and he lingered again on her and her companion. He lingered, even as he continued speaking to the man he had backed into the wall -

"Hast du deine Zunge verloren?"

\- even as Rose did; as she implored him –

"Mein Deutsch ist nicht schlecht. Du verstehst mich. _**Schaue ihn an**_."

Then, all change. In English now, the Horseman spoke into his captive's face. "Look at me-"

And the invalid, his mind now so fogged with fear and pain and exhaustion that he could no longer marshal the urge, turned without meaning to towards the words he understood. Realisation drained the life from his eyes not a heartbeat later; the men at his arms clamping tight their hold again as the beast before him closed in; salvation's chances dwindling to less than nothing.

"Englisch, yes" the Horseman pressed, the friendliness in his expression becoming vulture-like intensity as he snarled into his captive's face. "Not a Hessisch man, no matter _**colours**_." He tugged the man's jacket, looking to the nurses again who stared right back; Sally in petrified resignation and Rose, stunned, in equal parts abject disbelief and quickly dawning horror at what a hellish mistake she'd been a party to. "Hessisch colours on Englisch man is eizer _**coward**_ , _**hiding**_ , bringing dishonour to **MY PEOPLE,** or is **DER** **FEIND** , _**enemy**_ , _**hiding**_ \- vaiting fur chance to run! Matters not vhich. **END IS SAME**!"

The Horseman pushed himself clear of the invalid then, and into the space he left rushed the soldiers who had so patiently held their captive still. They had him out of the jacket he'd worn in seconds and to the ground the moment after, his arms restrained, mouth covered and wounded leg torn at – the now bloodied bandage Rose had fixed upon it tossed aside as they exacted revenge for how they and their nurses both had been japed. And the nurses themselves-

Heedless of vengeance, heedless of anything but fear, they hid against each other now; each other and the yard's fence and Franz who had hurried forth and dragged them there. They clutched at him, the pair of them, shocked cold and trembling as the captive was hauled to his feet and dragged into the camp-proper – his wailing entreaties to whomever might listen falling on deaf ears. They watched as he and the group hauling him on turned heads but caused nary a ripple elsewise in the work going on around them. They watched and saw how the men dragging him were given pats on the back as they marched onward, and how he, the invalid, was spat upon, jeered at. And they watched as well from around Franz's protective bulwark as der Reiter - his steps ghosted by the stallion made as infamous as he by his fellow Hessians and their loose lips for rousing stories - laid the discarded jacket carefully across his saddle, plucked the bandage that the soldiers had left behind off the ground, and moved onto the path.

He was all brimstone and blood to Rose, as was his steed. She could smell it, see it even – trickling from beneath the cloak that had been folded round the saddlebags the stallion carried; rolling in thick, half-coagulated globs down its hind legs as it strode, tight skin twitching over thick muscle. The sight, never mind the smell of it, made her want to gag, and made her grip on Sally – who she could feel starting to wobble on her feet – redouble. Burying her nose and lips in Franz's shoulder, she held on tight to him, and to her ward-sister, and reached out to God in silent prayer as the beast strode past them; it and _**its steed both**_.

Sally though- Unsteady or not, she had other ideas.

" _Mein Herr_!" she wheezed, Rose jumping at the sound and attempting quite frantically to hush her lest she draw attention – too late. Der Reiter turned to them, Gänger halting in place at his side as he looked again into the petrified, imploring eyes of this woman he knew by sight. Franz too looked around at her entreaty; glanced over her head towards the man she spoke to and froze. Beyond the hellish mien, from so close a range he found something familiar in the Horseman's face, and in the crests on his chest piece, and his gloves; something he remembered from his homeland, Hessen-Kassel. Der Reiter though had not an ounce of recognition or care for this man who stared at him. It was the nurse that held his attention until, with all the conviction in her little body, she pled -

"Wir haben _**nicht**_ gewusst!"

Unwilling to listen to such useless words, the Horseman pushed the rescued bandage into her fingers, mustered a command from what sounded like the very depths of him-

" _ **Brennen**_. Es."

-and then turned and started again up the path towards the camp proper; towards the slowly rising noise that was bubbling up along the captive's journey. The woman tried once more to reach him; called out-

" _Mein Herr_!"

-for nought. He was leaving them, she realised, his head assuredly full of doubts over her sanity, their sanity, in having helped der Feind and oh... _Oh how he knew_ _ **not**_ _the truth of things_! They were not _traitors_ ; innocents, yes, but not _**traitors**_! She had to tell him – indeed, she made a move to, but Franz's arm caught her waist before she could.

" _Nein_ , Frau" he scolded gently, sure in his own mind that her pursuit was born of overwrought nerves and muddled thinking. Gladly, especially given how weak he was yet, she did not elect to push away from him. Her gaze simply fixed on der Reiter's retreating back as Rose - her hand going for and then jerking away from Sally's given the bloodied rag she held in a white-knuckled fist - put what Sally had said to the Horseman to Franz.

"Sie lügt nicht" she urged. "Wir haben nicht gewusst."

"Ich weiß _das_ " the soldier soothed, gentle eyes lingering now upon Rose's wracked face. "Keiner von uns könnte es ohne Beweise wissen. Und das haben wir jetzt."

Rose gave a little nod despite herself. "Wohin bringen sie ihn?"

"Zum englischen Kapitän. Wenn er nur ein Feigling ist, wird er bestraft."

"Und wenn nicht?"

Franz did not answer. Gathering himself instead, he forced purpose into his voice. "Ihre Pflicht ist nicht zu ihm" he counselled, his voice firm but kind. "Ihre Pflicht ist zu Ihren Patienten. Erinnere dich daran. Kehre zu ihnen zurück…Und Zally?"

The woman barely moved to breathe.

Franz tried again. "...Zally?" he prompted, giving her a gentle nudge.

The touch brought Sally back to him "Ja?" she wisped, blinking owlishly.

"Tu was er gesagt hat" Franz told her, gesturing to the bandage she held still. With each word that followed, he watched something of serenity begin to dim the panic in her eyes in the same moment that new uncertainty bloomed wild in Rose's. "Verbrenne es. Du hast nichts falsch gemacht. Aber es wird den Commander davon abhalten, Fragen zu stellen."

Der Reiter, it seemed, had believed her.

And he might just have saved their necks.

* * *

Captain Phillips' decision was swift and decisive. The man found by the ruined stable block was no soldier of his. Clamped in irons - his ruined leg treated crudely with a tourniquet to keep him useful longer – he was secreted away and pressed all day through for information that, to the eternal chagrin of all involved, was not forthcoming. He was not long for the headsman's block as the evening's last showing eased off into night's darkness, when insistent voices spoke up from outside Phillips' door.

"Der Reiter sollte ihn nehmen!" one cried.

"Ja!" cried another. "Er hat ihn gefunden! Bring ihn zum Reiter!"

The Captain knew enough of the Hessians' tongue to follow without need of translation. He poked his head around his door, curious, and found the same gaggle of soldiers who had delivered the prisoner to him hours prior. Emerging properly, he spoke to them.

"…Wer ist der Reiter?"

_**Well** _

If _**that**_ question didn't loose the proverbial spigot.

They found the man in question standing sentry near the edge of the English army's designated portion of the camp – doing his part in keeping the space secure as soldiers darted to and fro; busy still with clean up. Replete with wild tales by the time he was within sight of him, Captain Phillips had to still himself from turning on his heel. He had no interest in the ghoulish, and a file-toothed mercenary certainly sounded like he fit that description. Something in the man's bearing though, in how he dismounted and approached when he became aware of his presence, in how he bowed slightly from the waist in respect of his rank, in how he dismissed the soldiers milling at Phillips' back excitedly and in how he spoke when presented with the Englishman's predicament – It reached him.

"Torture" the Horseman said, "is good only for lies…Of me? He has _**fear**_. Foolish stories, drenched in blood, yes? You know zem?"

Phillips' expression pinched. "Your countrymen are… _giving_ with those, yes."

The chuff of amusement that came up in the Horseman's chest suggested tolerance more than it did mirth. "My sword, to zem, burns like Höllenfeuer. Yet here…" The blade, snake-headed and garnet-eyed, hung now at his hip. He unsheathed it by two inches, touching it a moment later with swiftly ungloved fingers. "Zere is no heat." Settling the weapon back into place properly, der Reiter straightened where he stood. "Zis man you have. Pain did nothing. But fear? Perhaps it vill."

Ethics and practicality warred in Phillips briefly. Like his fellow man-of-rank Brandt, he had neither love nor trust for any man who sought battle for fortune. In this small instance however, with even torture having failed them, the possibility of an opportunity to learn something of how this man and his fellows coordinated their attack so perfectly as to catch the camp unawares – to use the fear this man before him obviously cultivated about himself in the eyes of their mutual enemy - was tantalising. He couldn't but ask.

"What are you suggesting?"

"I ride vit him" the Horseman proffered. "Out past ze fields, closer to his people. If he talk, I learn vat I can. Tell you vhen I return."

"And if you learn nothing?"

"I return and tell you so."

Disbelief drew Phillips' brows low. "Just like that?" he challenged, waiting for the mention of a price, of purse strings, for a hand to be extended to accept coin. Der Reiter though did no such thing; indeed, the question seemed to confuse him more than anything.

"Excuse?" he prompted. " _Like_?"

" _You will not be paid by the English Crown for this endeavour_ " the Captain snapped, his voice brought down in volume a notch or two despite its fervency; as if he feared what the camp might think if it heard him breaking bread in this manner with a man such as this. "Not for any part of it – whatever it is you…" He gestured vaguely towards the Horseman. "Do."

The cheek of the man, he flashed those awful teeth of his when a chuckle bubbled up through a grin. "Unvilling to pay ze Devil to vork for you" he said, enjoying how the prideful Englishman visibly tensed at the jibe. He went on, revelling in the verbal blow he'd landed. "I _am_ …Hessen-Kassel. Englisch coin…" His lips curled in a bit of a sneer; brief and perfunctory, and only to emphasise his point. "I do not need."

"Better Marks is it, Devil?" Phillips snorted, the bite in his words retaliatory; irksome as he found being ribbed. There was no more devilry about this horseman than there was the touch of his Lord's stately court. " _I am Hessen-Kassel_ indeed. You _**brag**_ , sir. I know enough of your people to name your _Landgraf_. I'd wager he would disagree with you."

Der Reiter did not flinch for the returned fire. He simply smiled an odd, almost knowing smile, and then nodded towards the English encampment's central area. "Bring him to me" he said. "Vill talk or die. Eizer way, he is pay enough."

* * *

Far from the camp in the deep-night's chill, a lone voice crooned softly.

Settled in the saddle behind his prisoner – who was bound and gagged – der Reiter mused aloud as much as he sang; the verses he was reciting part rhyme, part folktale invocation, part old, old song that had been taught to him by his mother when he was still small enough to be the youngest brother in his family and not the third of five. With care, he unsheathed his blade and laid it across his captive's legs; mindful as he did of his proximity to the herd of deer he could see grazing quietly in the trees nearby. The sight of them drew a faint smile from him, as did the clouds of fireflies easing to and fro on what little breeze was carrying them. The stars were out, the clouds and fog of the day forgotten, and the moon was glinting where it hung above the world.

These wilds, the Horseman wagered, he knew better than any of that Captain Phillips' roving platoons. Unlike them, he had the time and compunction to linger – to sink into this place and its rhythms so that if need be he could disappear as naturally as autumn giving way to winter; as easily as der Feinde had approached the camp through the wheat fields with night on their side. Through his travels he had an idea or two of where they had struck out from – all of which he would happily share with the Englishman in order that the pretence he had woven about fear being a better catalyst for revelations than torture might be preserved. True or not, he had no intention of frightening his captive into confessing his sins. He had no intention, in fact, of talking with him at all.

From the darkness then was spat the carrion bird; its ungainly flight, ducking and weaving, ending when it landed heavily upon strolling Gänger's brow. The stallion barely flicked an ear at its arrival, and only deigned to give it more than that by way of attention when it scrabble-hopped its way along the length of his neck towards the prisoner – its rasping call softened into something other; some bubbling, crackling, curious-sounding thing. A flutter of wings helped it clear the Horseman's blade, sharp little talons biting into cloth breeches as it landed upon the prisoner's thigh and reached its beaky face up and up and up-

There was blood seeping down his torso, the bird perceived; blood that oozed slowly – pushed out of a sucking wound long inflicted by one of der Reiter's slender daggers by a sluggish, dying heart. Probing now, it pushed through what cloth was left between wound and air and dipped its beak in deep; shaking its head when it retracted it and spattering gore upon the Horseman's resting sword. It spat and crackled, burning dry the moment contact was made.

And der Reiter?

Der Reiter sang on.

* * *

Translations:

"Thomas…Hörst du mich? Bitte. Hör mich. Wir sind alle in Sicherheit. Rose…Mir… Sie. Alles sicher… Alles sicher. Wir vermissen dich euch sehr. So sehr, Thomas…Wir brauchen dich hier. Um uns zu kümmern...Thomas, der Reiter ist hier! Du hattest Recht!...Hörst du mich?..."

"Thomas...can you hear me? Please. Hear me. We are all safe. Rose...me...you. Everything is safe...Everything is safe. We miss you very much. So much, Thomas...we need you here. To take care of us...Thomas, the Horseman is here! You were right!...Can you hear me?... "

"…Tut er nicht, Frau. Er wird nicht aufwachen"

"He doesn't, madam. He won't wake up."

"Bitte"

"Please"

"…Franz. Sie haben keine Veränderung an ihm gesehen?"

"... Franz. You haven't seen any change in him?"

"Nein…Keiner. Er bewegt sich von Zeit zu Zeit ein bisschen, wacht aber nicht auf."

"No…None. He moves a little from time to time but doesn't wake up."

"Ach nein...Fühlst Du Dich besser? Du siehst es aus. Auf deinen Füßen."

"Oh _no_...Are you feeling better? You look it. On your feet."

"Ja viel besser...Ich hatte gehofft, Rose zu sehen. Um ihr dafür zu danken, dass sie mich ertragen hat...Weißt du wo sie ist?"

"Yes, much better...I was hoping to see Rose. To thank her for putting up with me...Do you know where she is?"

"Ja...Sie ist schon eine Weile in der Nähe des Stalls...Und Sie wartet auf mich. Ich sollte zu ihr gehen."

"Yes...She's been near the stable for a while...And she's waiting for me. I should go to her."

"Wir sollten. Nach Ihnen. Ich werde nicht an diesem Ort bleiben. Männer sterben hier, aber ich werde es nicht. Mitkommen. Aus."

"We should. After you. I will not stay in this place. Men die here, but I won't. Come along. Out."

"Halte ihn fest!"

"Hold him tight!"

"Mein Herr"

"Sir"

"Fräulein"

"Young lady/Young miss"

"Hessisch"

"Hessian/from Hesse"

"Das ist egal...Ich möchte eine Reaktion. Ich muss wissen, dass er wach ist."

"It doesn't matter...I want a reaction. I need to know he's awake."

"Ich kann ihn wecken"

"I can wake him."

"Tot!"

"Dead!"

"Hast du das gehört?"

"Did you hear that?"

"Geht es dir gut?"

"Are you alright?"

" **HALT**!"

"STOP!"

" **GENUG**!"

"ENOUGH!"

"Sie haben kein _**Recht**_ , mit _**ihnen**_ zu sprechen"

"You have no right to speak to them."

" **Ja tut er**!"

"Yes he does!"

" **SCHWEIGEN**!"

"SILENCE!"

"Ich kann nicht sein!...Warum verletzt du ihn? Er ist einer von euch!"

"I can't be!...Why are you hurting him? He is one of you!"

"Ist er?"

"Is he?"

"Is he Hessian, madam?"

"Du kannst ihn sehen...Bitte, _**bitte**_ , du kannst ihn hören! Lass ihn gehen!"

"You can see him...Please, _**please**_ , you can hear him! Let him go!"

"Ich kann"

"I can"

"Und Sie, Fräulein Apfel?"

"And you, Miss Apple?"

"Glaubst du, er ist Hessisch?"

"Do you think he is Hessian?"

"Ich war mir sicher…Aber jetzt bin ich nicht"

"I was sure…But now I'm not"

"Ich werde fragen."

"I will ask."

"Mein Freund. Warum hast du Angst? Hm?...Warum hast du Angst? Ich bin dein Freund. Wir sind Hessisch, Sie und ich. Ja? Du hast mich erschreckt, als du geschrien hast. Das ist alles. Wir sind Freunde."

"My friend. Why are you scared? Hm?...Why are you afraid? I am your friend. We are Hessian, you and me. Yes? You startled me when you screamed That's all. We are friends."

"Du verstehst mich?"

"You understand me?"

"Sprich mit mir, mein Freund...Mein Freund. Schau mich an…Schau mich an."

"Talk to me, my friend…My friend. Look at me...Look at me."

"…Schaue ihn an"

"…Look at him."

"Hast du deine Zunge verloren?"

"Have you lost your tongue?"

"Mein Deutsch ist nicht schlecht. Du verstehst mich. _**Schaue ihn an**_."

"My German is not bad. You understand me. Look at him."

"Wir haben _**nicht**_ gewusst!"

"We did _**not**_ know!"

" _ **Brennen**_. Es."

" _ **Burn**_. It."

"Nein, Frau"

"No, madam"

"Sie lügt nicht...Wir haben nicht gewusst."

"She is not lying…We didn't know."

"Ich weiß das...Keiner von uns könnte es ohne Beweise wissen. Und das haben wir jetzt."

"I know that…None of us could've known without evidence. And now we have that."

"Wohin bringen sie ihn?"

"Where are they taking him?"

"Zum englischen Kapitän. Wenn er nur ein Feigling ist, wird er bestraft."

"To the English captain. If he's just a coward, he'll be punished."

"Und wenn nicht?"

"And if not?"

"Ihre Pflicht ist nicht zu ihm…Ihre Pflicht ist zu Ihren Patienten. Erinnere dich daran. Kehre zu ihnen zurück…Und Zally?"

"Your duty is not to him...your duty is to your patients. Remember it. Return to them…And Zally?"

"Tu was er gesagt hat. Verbrenne es. Du hast nichts falsch gemacht. Aber es wird den Commander davon abhalten, Fragen zu stellen."

"Do what he said. Burn it. You have done nothing wrong. But it will keep the commander from asking questions."

"Der Reiter sollte ihn nehmen!"

"The Horseman should take him!"

"Ja! Er hat ihn gefunden! Bring ihn zum Reiter!"

"Yes! He found him! Take him to the Horseman!"

"…Wer ist der Reiter?"

"…Who is the Horseman?"

"Höllenfeuer."

"Hellfire."


End file.
